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PUBLICATIONS OF THE 
ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION 



II. ROOSEVELT IN THE KANSAS CITY STAR 



COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATIONS 
ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL ASSOCIATION INC. 
r. j. cuddihy 
Arthur W. Page 
Mark Sullivan 
E. A. Van Valkenburg 



/ 



ROOSEVELT 

IN THE KANSAS CITY STAR 

WAR-TIME EDITORIALS 

BY 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
RALPH STOUT 

Managing Editor of The Star 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(Ste iSitiftiBitie J^resiS Cambtibge 
1921 






COPYRIGHT, I917, Igl8, AND I9I9, BY THE KANSAS CITY STAR 
COPYRIGHT, I921, BY RALPH STOUT 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



.^01 A6 5306 8 



CONTENTS 

Introduction, by Ralph Stout xiii 

Dr. Fitzsimons's Death, September 17, 1917 i 

Blood, Iron, and Gold, September 23, 191 7 2 
The Ghost Dance of the Shadow Huns, October i, 

1917 5 

Sam Weller and Mr. Snodgrass, October 2, 1917 8 

Broomstick Preparedness, October 4, 1917 10 

The Bondholders and the People, October 7, 1917 12 

Factories of Good Citizenship, October 10, 1917 13 

Pillar-of-Salt Citizenship, October 12, 191 7 16 

Broomstick Apologists, October 14, 191 7 18 
The Liberty Loan and the Pro-Germans, October 

16, 1917 20 

A Difficult Question to Answer, October 18, 1917 23 

Now Help the Liberty Loan, October 20, 1917 25 
A Square Deal for the Training Camps, October 21, 

1917 26 
The Passing of the Cripple, October 23, 1917 28 
The Peace of Complete Victory, October 23, 1917 30 
Fighting Work for the Man of Fighting Age, Octo- 
ber 25, 1917 32 
Wise Women and Foolish Women, October 27, 191 7 34 
Why Cry over Spilt Milk? October 28, 1917 36 
Save the Foodstuff, October 30, 1917 38 
On the Firing Line, October 31, 1917 40 
Nine Tenths of Wisdom is being Wise in Time, No- 
vember I, 1917 42 
We are in this War to the Finish, November 2, 1917 43 
Sinister Allies, November 3, 191 7 45 



vi CONTENTS 

The New York Mayoralty Election, November 8, 

1917 47 

German Hatred of America, November 13, 1917 49 
Start the System of Universal Military Training 

at Once, November 17, 1917 52 

A FiFTY-FiFTY War Attitude, November 20, 1917 54 
The Germanized Socialists and Peace, November 

26, 1917 56 
Mobilize our Man Power, December i, 1917 58 
The Landsdowne Letter, December 2, 191 7 60 
The President's Message, December 5, 1917 62 
Four Bites of a Cherry, December 7, 1917 64 
The Red Cross Christmas Membership Drive, De- 
cember 12, 1917 66 
Being Brayed in a Mortar, December 18, 1917 68 
Rendering a Great Public Service, December 20, 

1917 71 
A Betrayal of Democracy, December 21, 1917 73 
Broomstick Preparedness — A Study in Cause and 

Effect, December 27, 1917 76 

Our Duty for the New Year, January i, 1918 78 
Tell the Truth and Speed up the War, January 4, 

1918 80 
The Cost of Unpreparedness, January 6, 1918 82 
Cooperation and Control, January 8, 191 8 85 
The Artemus Ward Theory of War, January 17, 1918 87 
The Fruits of Watchful Waiting, January 18, 19 18 89 
Tell the Truth, January 21, 1918 92 
Justification of Constructive Criticism, January 

28, 1918 93 
Secretary Baker's General Denial, February 2, 

1918 96 



CONTENTS vii 

Let George Speed up the War, February 3, 191 8 98 
Let Uncle Sam get into the Game, February 5, 1918 loi 
Conservation is Important and Production is More 

Important, February 15, 1918 103 

The People's War, February 26, 1918 105 

The Fruits of Fifty-Fifty Loyalty, March 2, 1918 109 
Quit Talking Peace, March 5, 1918 iii 

The Worst Enemies of Certain Loyal Americans, 
March 10, 1918 113 

Gird up our Loins, March 16, 1918 115 

Bolsheviki at Home and Abroad, March 19, 1918 117 

The Fruits of Our Delay, March 26, 191 8 120 

How the Hun Earns his Title, March 31, 1918 122 

Thank Heaven! April 2, 1918 ' 128 

Citizens or Subjects? April 6, 1918 129 

Women and the War, April 12, 1918 133 
To my Fellow Americans of German Blood, April 

16, 1918 135 

An Extraordinary Achievement in Human Upbuild- 
ing, April 17, 1918 138 

Freedom stands with her Back to the Wall, April 
20, 1918 140 

A Square Deal for All Americans, April 27, 191-8 142 

The German Horror, May 2, 1918 145 
Sedition, a Free Press, and Personal Rule, May 7, 

1918 147 

The Dangers or a Premature Peace, May 12, 1918 150 

The War Savings Campaign, May 27, 1918 155 

Anti-Bolshevism, June 5, 191 8 '158 

General Wood, June 15,1918 160 

Help Russia Now, June 20, 1918 162 



vili CONTENTS 

An American Fourth of July, June 23, 1918 166 

How NOT TO Adjourn Politics, June 25, 1918 167 

Hats off to the International Typographical 
Union, June 27, 1918 170 

The Performance of a Great Public Duty, July 3, 
1918 172 

Repeal the Charter of the German-American Alli- 
ance, July ii, 1918 174 

Every Man has a Right to One Country, July 15, 
1918 177 

Murder, Treason, and Parlor Anarchy, July 18, 
1918 ' 180 

Back up the Fighting Men at the Front, July 26, 
1918 183 

The Americans whom we most Delight to Honor, 
August i, 1918 186 

Sound Nationalism and Sound Internationalism, 
August 4, 1918 188 

The Man who Pays and the Man who Profits, Au- 
gust 9, 1918 196 

Our Debt to the British Empire, August 16, 1918 200 

The Candidacy of Henry Ford, August 20, 1918 202 

Speed up the Work for the Army and Give all who 

Enter it Fair Play, August 23, 1918 206 

Senator Lodge's Noble Speech, September i, 1918 209 
Applied Patriotism, September 8, 1918 211 

Good Luck to the Anti-Bolshevists of Kansas, Sep- 
tember 12, 1918 213 
The Fourth Liberty Loan, September 17, 1918 216 
Fair Play and No Politics, September 20, 1918 218 
Spies and Slackers, September 24, 1918 221 
Quit Playing Favorites, September 30, 1918 224 
War Aims and Peace Proposals, October 12, 1918 226 



CONTENTS ix 

Permanent Preparedness and the League of Na- 
tions, October 15, 1918 229 
High-sounding Phrases of Muddy Meaning, Octo- 
ber 17, 1918 231 
An American Peace versus a Rubber-Stamp Peace, 

October 22, 1918 236 

Unconditional Surrender, October 26, 1918 239 

What are the Fourteen Points? October 30, 1918 241 
Further Consideration of the Fourteen Points, 

October 30, 191 8 243 

Fourteen Scraps of Paper, October 31, 191 8 248 

The Turks Surrender Unconditionally, November 

3, 1918 251 

Peace, November 12, 1918 253 

Sacrifice on Cold Altars, November 13, 1918 255 

The Red Flag and the Hun Peace Drive, November 

14, 1918 258 

The League of Nations, November 17, 1918 261 

An American Congress, November 18, 1918 265 

The Freedom of the Seas and the Enslavement of 

Mankind, November 22, 1918 269 

President Wilson and the Peace Conference, No- 
vember 26, 1918 272 
The League to Enforce Peace, December 2, 1918 277 
The Men whose Lot has been Hardest, December 8, 

1918 281 

The British Navy, the French Army, and American 

Common Sense, December 17, 1918 283 

Let us have Straightforward Speaking, December 

24, 1918 287 

A Square Deal for the Men at the Front, Decem- 
ber 25, 1918 289 
The League of Nations, January 13, 1919 292 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Theodore Roosevelt and W. R. Nelson 

From a snapshot Photogravure Frontispiece 

Facsimile of a Note from Roosevelt to W. R. 

Nelson xxii 

Facsimile of a Page of the Manuscript of one of 

Roosevelt's Editorials 2 



INTRODUCTION 

I 

The request, repeated and urgent, has come from 
many sources that the editorial articles, contributed 
by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt to The Kansas City 
Star during our country's participation in the World 
War, be preserved for the future. It is in response to 
this request that this volume is published. 

Newspaper publication is ephemeral. Newspaper 
files are short-lived. Anybody who has examined a 
newspaper of thirty years ago knows how flimsy it 
is, how it breaks and disintegrates to the touch. It 
lacks the enduring quality of the newspaper of sixty 
or seventy-five years ago when other elements en- 
tered into the composition of news-print paper. 
Newspaper publication is the thought of to-day; to- 
morrow, it is gone save for the impression left on 
the mind of the reader. That the recollection of 
Colonel Roosevelt's articles may have something to 
appeal to aside from crumbling newspaper files is the 
aim of this book. And so these expressions on the 
events in a crisis in our national history — from the 
mind of a man whose intense love of country was the 
admiration of all who knew him, expressions which 
at the time of their publication stirred many to 
greater sacrifice for country, some to anger, even to 
rage — are here presented in enduring form. 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

Colonel Roosevelt's contributions to The Star 
were his most frequent expressions on the war ; they 
were the outpouring of a great soul deeply stirred by 
the country's situation. There were more than one 
hundred articles from his pen. They covered the 
vital time of our part in the war from October, 191 7, 
until his death January 6, 1919. 

The reason he chose The Star as his medium of 
reaching the people, in a period when a large section 
of the American people sought and was guided by 
what he said, was that Colonel Roosevelt and The 
Star had known and understood each other for a 
long, long time. Their acquaintance dated back to 
the period of his service in the New York legislature. 
The Star saw behind his conduct then the qualities 
and the spirit which it was continually seeking to 
place at a premium in offices of public trust. 

Later, in 1889, when President Harrison appointed 
him a civil service commissioner, The Star said: 

The appointment of Theodore Roosevelt as one of the civil 
service commissioners is a hopeful sign that President Harri- 
son desires to give civil service reform a fair representation in 
the government. Mr. Roosevelt is an accomplished gentle- 
man, with sincere aspirations for reformed methods of admin- 
istration, as shown by his career in the New York legislature 
when Grover Cleveland was governor. Mr. Roosevelt is too 
independent ever to serve as a party henchman, and his voice 
and influence will always be in favor of what he believes to be 
the most efficient and business-like administration of affairs. 

Colonel Roosevelt and the founder and editor of 
The Star, the late William R. Nelson, had met, but 
they did not really know each other until after the 



INTRODUCTION xv 

war with Spain. In his canvass for the vice-presi- 
dency in 1900 Colonel Roosevelt was entertained at 
the Nelson home, Oak Hall, Kansas City. From this 
visit dated better acquaintance. They had much in 
common and were alike in many characteristics: 
frank, outspoken, impulsive, and passionately de- 
voted to the same ideals of private life and public 
service. 

I recall a story of an impulsive act of Colonel 
Roosevelt back in his ranchman days. A man of 
shady reputation had been appointed Indian Agent 
with the Sioux on a Dakota reservation. He put into 
effect many sharp practices with the Indians which 
would line his pockets with money. Roosevelt's 
ranch was not far away and ranch affairs took him to 
the agency. One day he went to the agency and 
sought the agent. 

" You are Mr. ? " the ranchman asked. 

" Yes," was the reply. 

" I have heard what you have been doing with the 
Indians. You are a thief! Good-day! " 

The story, as told, was that the agent, aghast at 
the boldness of his visitor, turned and walked away. 

The late Curtis Guild, Jr., of Boston, and Senator 
Beveridge, of Indiana, were with Colonel Roosevelt 
on the Oak Hall visit. They found delight in the 
paintings and books in Mr. Nelson's home and 
Colonel Roosevelt gave proof of his wide range of 
knowledge by his instant recognition of the work of 
painters of long-established reputation. In his in- 
spection of the library he asked to see what Mr. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

Nelson had on the Greek dramatists. " I always ask 
for them in a man's library," he remarked. 

During this visit I was a listener at an argument 
between the two men on partisanship. Mr. Nelson 
had in his early days affiliated with the Democratic 
Party. In 1876 he was Mr. Tilden's personal man- 
ager in Indiana. But with the party's treatment of 
Tilden Mr. Nelson lost partisan zeal, and never after 
could he be considered a party man. He founded 
The Star in 1880 as an independent newspaper; it 
has remained an independent newspaper. 

Colonel Roosevelt's argument was, that to accom- 
plish anything in public affairs a man or a newspaper 
had to belong to a party organization. He probably 
had in mind his experience in the Blaine campaign 
of 1884. His conclusion was that the American 
people were wedded to the two-party system and 
that one who aspired to do anything for the country 
could achieve only by working through a party 
organization. 

Mr. Nelson granted what he said was true as to 
an individual, but not as to a newspaper of ^he right 
sort. It was perhaps true as to a newspaper which 
had as one of its aims the securing of political honor 
for its owner, but the newspaper sincerely devoted to 
the public interest could wield greater power by 
retaining its independence and in the end could ac- 
complish more substantial achievements, a state- 
ment verified by his own conduct of The Star. Colo- 
nel Roosevelt saw the force of Mr. Nelson's conten- 
tion, but stuck to his point that, with an individual, 



i 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

accomplishment outside of party ranks was im- 
possible. 

It is interesting to look back over the growth of 
the mutual understanding and the fondness of the 
two men for each other dating from that visit in 
1900. After leaving Kansas City, Colonel Roosevelt 
sent back a letter expressing his delight at the day 
spent at Oak Hall, closing with " How I do wish I 
could spend the week in your library instead of upon 
this infernal campaigning trip! " 

When the assassin's bullet struck down President 
McKinley, Mr. Nelson sent a telegram to Colonel 
Roosevelt expressing his horror at the deed and 
pledging the whole-hearted support of his newspaper 
in aiding him to carry the great burden which had 
been placed on his shoulders. 

Mr. Nelson had no wish to be a distributor of federal 
patronage ; he was concerned in higher things. When 
Colonel Roosevelt turned to him for advice on polit- 
ical matters, he was reluctant to give it, feeling his 
own lack of real knowledge of the politics of Kansas 
and Missouri and of the men who sought appoint- 
ments. Late in 1901" Colonel Roosevelt, asking 
about conditions in Missouri, wrote, referring to St. 
Louis men, " I think they have been rather after 
the offices and not after success. ... I should like 
to have some office-holder in Missouri to whom I 
could tie." 

Mr. Nelson asked the political writers of The Star 
to write their estimate of the men seeking office and 
leadership, and these were sent to the President 



x\iii INTRODUCTION 

with his endorsement. The President repeatedly 
followed the ideas of these letters, and it is a pleas- 
ure to record that in no instance was there subse- 
quently cause for regret for any selection based on 
the letters. 

In 1908 the President's appointment of the Farm 
Life Commission received Mr. Nelson's commenda- 
tion, for he had long recognized the need of making 
farm life more attractive; indeed, he would have 
financed experiments along this line had he been 
younger. At the same time Mr. Nelson spoke ap- 
provingly of the President's recent comment on the 
courts, adding, " Courts need such criticism the 
worst kind. They steadily undermine confidence in 
law and legal justice." 

*' I am sick at heart," the President replied, " over 
the way in which the courts have been prostituting 
justice in the last few years. The greatest trouble 
will follow if they do not alter their present attitude. 
I suppose I shall * pay ' myself in some way for what 
I have said about the courts, but I have got to take 
the risk." 

In 1909, in the closing days of the Roosevelt Ad- 
ministration the President issued an executive order 
looking to a quick settlement of a long-pending con- 
troversy over the channel of the Kaw River at Kan- 
sas City. It was unexpected; indeed, few in Kansas 
City knew that the President was considering the 
subject. The order cut straight to the heart of the 
controversy in true Roosevelt fashion. The same 
day Mr. Nelson sent this telegram to the President: 



INTRODUCTION xix 

It is quite worth while to have a real President of the 
United States. 

The next day this reply came from the President: 

It is even better worth while to have a real editor of just 
the right kind of paper. 



II 

The Star supported Taft in the campaign of 1908 
because it had faith that he would carry out the 
Roosevelt policies. Events early in the Taft Admin- 
istration weakened that faith; the Winona speech 
withered it. Mr. Nelson had had no correspondence 
with Colonel Roosevelt while he was hunting in 
Africa. Two letters came from the ex-President, one 
March 12, 1910, from the White Nile saying he 
expected to return in June; another from Porto 
Maurizio, a month later, saying, " I know you will 
understand how delicate my position is," and avsking 
for an early conference with Mr. Nelson on his return 
to this country. Mr. Nelson's final, open break with 
President Taft was " more in sorrow than in anger " ; 
there was never bitterness of feeling, solely regret at 
a mistake in believing Mr. Taft stood for principles 
which events early in his administration showed con- 
vincingly he did not stand for. 

Writing to Colonel Roosevelt, in 1910, after his 
return from Africa, Mr. Nelson referred to the Wi- 
nona speech and the Ballinger case, concluding: " I 
have wondered whether sooner or later there would 
not have to be a new party of the Square Deal." 



XX INTRODUCTION 

The succeeding two years there were frequent con- 
ferences and interchange of letters between Colonel 
Roosevelt and Mr. Nelson. The latter had absolute 
confidence and abiding faith in Roosevelt. Late in 
1 9 10 the Colonel's enemies were seeking to torment 
him from many angles. Mr. Nelson wrote him: 

It has occurred to me that the opposition will constantly 
be prodding you and lying about you with the evident pur- 
pose of getting you angry and so putting you to a disad- 
vantage. That is the only hope on earth they have of stop- 
ping you. 

Your comment on Wm. Barnes was fine. It recalled to me 
an incident connected with Governor Tilden, who was the 
wisest politician I ever knew. As a young man I was his man- 
ager in Indiana. After the defeat of Lucius Robinson, whom 
he was backing for Governor of New York, I went East at 
his invitation to confer with him. He asked me to see Kelly, 
Clarkson, Potter, Dorsheimer, and Sam Cox, and some of the 
other men who had been fighting him, to get their views. 
" What shall I tell them about your position if they ask me?" 
I said. " Oh, tell them," he said, " that I am very amiable." 
In my adventures since that time I have often had occasion 
to remember that as sound advice. Amiability is a great 
weapon at times. 

But my point is that you never need to defend yourself at 
all. The people will take care of your defense. Besides, it is 
always a bad policy, in my opinion, to get to talking about 
the past. You are a Progressive. Your nose is to the front. 
The past doesn't interest you. So I hope you will ignore the 
critics, no matter how exasperating they may be. And if you 
can't ignore them, laugh at them! 

To this the Colonel replied : 

I guess you are right; but it does make me flame with in- 
dignation when men who pretend to be especially the cus- 
todians of morals, and who sit in judgment from an Olympian 
height of virtue on the deeds of other men, themselves oflend 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

in a way that puts them on a level with the most corrupt 

scoundrel in a city government 

But this does not alter the fact that, as you say, my busi- 
ness is to pay no heed to the slanders of the past, but to keep 
my face steadily turned toward the future. Here in New York 
the outlook is rather dark. There are a great multitude of 
men, some of them nominally respectable, but timid or mis- 
led, who do certainly, although rather feebly, object to the 
domination of Barnes and his fellow bosses; but who do sin- 
cerely, but rather feebly, prefer clean politics to corrupt 
politics; but who, nevertheless, dread any interference with 
what they regard as the rights of big business, any assault on 
what I regard as an improperly arranged tariff, any eff rt to 
work for the betterment of social conditions in the spirit of 
Abraham Lincoln; who regard all assaults and efforts of this 
nature as being worse than the rule of small bosses and the 
petty corruption of local politicians. 

Ill 

As the presidential campaign of 19 12 developed, 
there were frequent exchanges of views. In May 
Colonel Roosevelt wrote that he was confident of 
victory in the Republican Convention in spite of all 
that was being done against him by the men in con- 
trol of the party. Only those who were in the thick 
of the Republican Convention in Chicago in June 
realize how the fighting blood of the men on the 
progressive side, from the leader down, was aroused. 
Mr. Nelson was at Chicago during the Republican 
Convention. Colonel Roosevelt sought his advice 
throughout. The course which was ultimately fol- 
lowed had Mr. Nelson's full approval. In a telegram 
to Colonel Roosevelt after the break from the 
Republican Party, Mr. Nelson said: " I am with 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

you tooth and nail, to the limit and to the finish." 
Following those vivid days and nights of the Re- 
publican Convention — a period no active partici- 
pant can ever erase from his memory — came the 
Orchestra Hall meeting, the first definite step to 
organize the Progressive Party, the National Pro- 
gressive Party Convention in August, and then the 
memorable three-party campaign. 

In the midst of the campaign Mr. Nelson and the 
Colonel had the time and inclination to carry on a 
correspondence on things not directly touching the 
issues on which the fight was made. In a letter from 
his summer home at Magnolia, Massachusetts, Mr. 
Nelson dropped into a discussion of what he called 
his two hobbies — to drive money out of the voting 
booth and out of the courthouse. His idea was that 
all legitimate expenses of candidates for office should 
be paid by the State, and that there should be a re- 
form of the voting system which would avoid the 
necessity of party organization to get out the vote. 
Having the vote taken by letter carriers was one 
way that appealed to him. He would make justice 
free, " not for sale as it is to-day when the rich man 
gets the best lawyers." Lawyers should be officers 
of the court in fact as well as In theory, and should 
be compensated for their work by the State, not by 
the litigants. 

Replying to this letter late in July, Colonel Roose- 
velt said : 

I am with you in principle on both the points you raise. I 
am with you on the question of the State paying the election 



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INTRODUCTION ' xxiii 

expenses right away now. I have always stood for that course 
as the only one to give the poor man a fair chance in politics. 
Your other idea is new, but I have long been feeling my 
way to the same conclusion. A lawyer is not like a doctor. 
No real good for the community comes from the development 
of legalism, from the development of that kind of ability 
shown by the great corporation lawyers who lead our bar; 
whereas good does come from medical development. The 
high-priced lawyer means, when reduced to his simplest ex- 
pression, that justice tends to go to the man with the longest 
purse. But the proposal is such a radical one that I do not 
know how it would be greeted, and it is something we will 
have to fight for later. 

Theodore Roosevelt 

Late in September, during a campaign tour of the 
West, Colonel Roosevelt spent a Sunday evening at 
Oak Hall. The subject of campaign contributions 
came up, and the candidate became reminiscent, 
recounting his first experience as governor of New 
York with campaign contributions. It was an in- 
cident, he said, that might readily be misconstrued 
and so he had not discussed it publicly. 

Soon after he was elected governor of New York, 
he had discovered that the street railways were pay- 
ing almost no taxes. Accordingly he took steps to 
introduce a franchise tax bill into the legislature. 
Mr. Odell at once came to him and told him that 
he was following in the footsteps of Bryan and 
"Potato" Pingree, which was the most severe 
condemnation at that time. That warning having 
no effect, Mr. Piatt came to him and said, " Gov- 
ernor, you can't do this. Don't you know that the 
Whitney- Ryan combination was one of the heaviest 
contributors to your campaign fund?" 



xxlv INTRODUCTION 

"The deuce they were," said Roosevelt; " I sup- 
posed they made their contributions to Tammany." 

" Of course," Piatt returned, '* they contributed 
to Tammany, but they gave us just half as much as 
they did Tammany. If they had n't expected fair 
treatment from us they would have given it all to 
Tammany." 

" I told Piatt they would get fair treatment from 
us," Roosevelt said, in telling the story, " but if 
they expected immunity from taxation they were 
going to be left." 

At that time the Whitney-Ryan combination 
owned the New York street railways and so were 
going to be hard hit by the franchise tax. Mr. 
Roosevelt added that the franchise tax bill went 
through and created quite a scandal in high finance 
at that time. " Everybody was talking about it," he 
said, " and all the big financiers knew about it. So I 
never could have any sympathy with the view that 
Harriman or the Standard Oil people — if they 
really contributed to my campaign fund — or any 
other interest of that sort gave any money for cam- 
paign purposes under a misapprehension. They 
knew from my deeds as well as my words that they 
could not buy immunity from me, and that the best 
they could expect was a square deal. I said one 
time to Bacon, ' Bob, why is it that Morgan and all 
his crowd are against me? Don't they know that 
they would get justice from me?' Bacon smiled, 
hesitated, and then said, 'Yes, I suppose they do.'" 

In the Progressive campaign Mr. Nelson violated 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

a personal rule of many years* standing which for- 
bade his personal participation in politics. Into this 
campaign he went with his whole soul. Then past 
seventy years of age, he was abundantly able to 
direct but not to give of his physical strength. He 
assumed responsibility for organizing the party in 
Missouri and lent his newspaper organization to that 
end. He thought day and night for the party's can- 
didate and the party's principles, and at the end of 
the campaign he had left undone nothing which he 
could have done for the candidate who had his ab- 
solute and unqualified confidence. After the election 
Colonel Roosevelt wrote Mr. Nelson: 

I can never overstate how much I appreciate all that you 
have done and been throughout this fight. My dear Sir, I 
am very grateful and I know that the only way I can show 
my gratitude is so to bear myself that you will feel no cause 
for regret at having stood by me. 

After the campaign of 1912, which showed the re- 
markable strength of Colonel Roosevelt with the 
people and demonstrated that he was still a factor 
in American public life to be reckoned with, the tor- 
menting by his political enemies continued. From 
many quarters darts had been hurled at " the old 
lion." In July, 1914, after a libel suit for fifty 
thousand dollars had been started, Mr. Nelson tele- 
graphed the Colonel at Oyster Bay: 

Too bad so much of the burden should fall on you. Would 
gladly share it with you. 

In a few days the message brought this letter: 
When a man is under constant fire and begins to feel, now 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

and then, as if he did not have very many friends, and as if 
the forces against him were perfectly overwhelming, then, 
even though he is prepared to battle alone absolutely to the 
end, he is profoundly appreciative of the support of those 
whose support is best worth having. Your telegram not only 
gave me real comfort, but touched and moved me profoundly. 

Theodore Roosevelt 

That was the end of the recorded correspondence 
between Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Nelson. The 
former came West on a speaking tour in the fall of 
1 914 and during his stay in Kansas City was a 
guest again at Oak Hall. Mr. Nelson accompanied 
him to a campaign meeting in a skating rink packed 
with people in Kansas City, Kansas, where he spoke 
in a sweltering atmosphere for more than an hour 
preaching with all his old vigor and enthusiasm the 
doctrines of the Progressive Party. 

There was the same display from great crowds of 
people, along the streets around the hall and every- 
where he went, of the keen interest and personal 
admiration which Colonel Roosevelt's presence in 
Kansas City territory always brought out. Kansas 
City and its vicinity had been Roosevelt ground 
since Kansas and Western Missouri became ac- 
quainted with him; indeed, any appearance by him 
was sufficient to fill Convention Hall in Kansas City 
to its capacity of fifteen thousand people. 

Following Mr. Nelson's death in April, 191 5, there 
came from Colonel Roosevelt a sincere appreciation 
of his sorrow, ending, "We have lost literally one of 
the foremost citizens of the United States, one of the 
men whom our Republic could least afford to spare." 



INTRODUCTION xxvii 

IV 

In the 191 6 campaign Colonel Roosevelt and The 
Star were of the same mind. Deeply attached to the 
principles on which the battle of 19 12 had been con- 
ducted by the Progressive Party, they were con- 
scious of the futility of continuing the fight for those 
principles in a third party. The American devotion 
to the two-party system had been convincingly 
demonstrated again. The World War had been in 
progress two years, the Lusitania had been sunk 
without stirring the Administration to more than 
impotent words. Both thought that the Republican 
Party presented the only hope of accomplishment. 
Colonel Roosevelt was The Star's choice for the 
nomination, but his nomination was too much to 
expect after the break of 191 2, and it gave its 
support to Mr. Hughes. 

Early in June, 191 7, Mr. Irwin Kirkwood, Mr. 
Nelson's son-in-law, on his way West from New 
York, chanced to meet Colonel Roosevelt on the 
train. A visit in the Colonel's stateroom followed. 
The conversation turned to the seeming impossi- 
bility of a Roosevelt division for France, a subject in 
which Mr. Kirkwood was personally interested, for 
he had been assured service in France if the Colonel's 
ambition were realized. The Colonel was discour- 
aged over his failure to get active service and restless 
at the Administration's slow preparation for war. 
Of the Nation's whole-hearted support of the war he 
was certain, and the high thought with him at the 



xxviii INTRODUCTION 

time was to bring influences to bear on the Admin- 
istration to speed up. 

At this time Colonel Roosevelt was contributing 
a monthly article for The Metropolitan Magazine 
written long in advance of its publication. Daily, 
momentous problems of the war were coming up. 
Mr. Kirkwood felt strongly that the American 
people were eager to know what Theodore Roosevelt 
thought on these questions. If he could reach the 
public quickly, great good would result to this 
country's cause. Recalling that Mr. Nelson had 
said, when there was criticism of the ex-President's 
purpose to write for The Outlook, when it was first 
announced, he would be mighty glad to have him 
write for The Star, Mr. Kirkwood said: 

" Colonel Roosevelt, would n't it be fine if you 
could get your ideas on the war to the people before 
they were twenty-four hours old? The only way that 
could be done is through a newspaper." 

" By George! " said the Colonel, with emphasis, 
" I never thought of that: it sounds like a good 
idea." 

Mr. Kirkwood said if he would consider the sug- 
gestion, The Star would certainly welcome him. 

' ' Such a proposition would not tempt me from many 
newspapers," Colonel Roosevelt continued. "In 
fact I know of no others except The Kansas City 
1/ Star and The Philadelphia North American from 

which I would consider it. The Star particularly 
appeals to me as being printed in the heart of the 
great progressive Middle Western country, and be- 



INTRODUCTION xxix 

cause, too, of my love and affection for Colonel 
Nelson." 

Colonel Roosevelt remarked that he would like 
to discuss the proposal with Mrs. Roosevelt and his 
daughter, Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, for he had 
great confidence in the judgment of both. On Mr. 
Kirkwood's return to New York a fortnight later, 
Colonel Roosevelt said he was still " filled up " with 
the idea and asked Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood out to 
dinner at Oyster Bay with Mrs. Roosevelt and 
himself. Mrs. Kirkwood was unable to go. Mr. 
Kirkwood again discussed the proposal. Colonel 
Roosevelt's position was that if The Star was still 
unafraid, he was willing to start. The next time the 
Colonel came to New York he had tea with Mr. and 
Mrs. Kirkwood, and there was a further full and 
frank discussion. 

"You, of course, know what you are doing," 
Colonel Roosevelt said. ** Many people do not like 
my ideas and probably many of your subscribers 
will be perfectly furious at The Star for printing my 
editorials." 

Both Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood assured him full 
consideration had been given to that phase, and 
while it was possible he and The Star might not 
always agree, that fact would not stand in the way 
of the arrangement. 

So the agreement was there entered into. Colonel 
Roosevelt suggested that as 1920 was a presidential 
year the connection be for two years or until October, 
1919, to which Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood assented. 



XXX INTRODUCTION 

Colonel Roosevelt said he never pretended to be 
much of a business man, but a formal contract was 
the usual thing; he had one with The Metropolitan. 
Anyhow he would gladly sign it. He was asked if he 
desired a contract and answered he did not. 

"You understand and we do — " said Mr. Kirk- 
wood. 

Without waiting for the sentence to be finished, 
Colonel Roosevelt said quickly, "That's all I want 
to know. Let's don't bother with a contract." 

And on that basis the Colonel wrote for The Star 
until his death. 

Early in September I was delegated to go to New 
York, as Managing Editor of The Star, to discuss 
with the Colonel the details of his work for the paper. 
I met him at a hotel in Fifty-Seventh Street where he 
went on the days he came in from Oyster Bay. Mrs. 
Roosevelt was with him. Roosevelt was in high 
spirits, which was no uncommon thing. I recall 
vividly my introduction to Mrs. Roosevelt. 

" Edith," he said, leading me into the room where 
Mrs. Roosevelt was, " here is my new boss! " 

I did n't say it, but the thought came to me that 
I would prefer the task of " bossing " a tornado. 

The talk that followed was that The Star had no 
desire to guide what he wrote; that it desired him to 
write whatever was in him, and it would print it. 
The Colonel said that was exactly what he wanted ; 
he could do nothing else. We discussed the dis- 
tribution over the country of his writings, which he 
left entirely to The Star, with the request that they 



INTRODUCTION xxxi 

be not offered to certain newspapers which had long 
shown a spirit of personal animosity to him and of 
habitual hostility toward his principles, a suggestion 
which was wholly agreeable to The Star. He asked 
about the length and frequency of the articles he 
was to write. It was agreed that an editorial of 
around five hundred words was ideal, and at the 
start there would be two contributions a week. 
Later they were more frequent. The Colonel said he 
would probably find it difficult to keep down to five 
hundred words, but he recognized the limitations of 
newspaper space and would do his best. 

" Now," he said, " if I get too highbrow, don't 
hesitate to tell me. I 'm no tender flower; I can 
stand criticism." 

His secretary had come into the room to receive 
dictation from accumulated correspondence. I arose 
to go. " Stay with us," the Colonel said, " until I 
finish this; you are a member of the family now." 

Short, crisp sentences came from him as he dic- 
tated, each with the animation of a face-to-face 
conversation with the writers of the letters. 

It was arranged that the Colonel was to take up 
his duties the first of October, and a few days after 
this meeting announcement was made the country 
over that Theodore Roosevelt w^as to write for The 
Kansas City Star. Immediately applications for the 
right to print the articles poured in from newspapers 
throughout the country. 

Colonel Roosevelt came West in September on a 
speaking tour which included Kansas City. So he 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

came into the office of The Star on the morning of 
September 22, 191 7, and went to a desk which had 
been assigned him, with the remark, " The cub re- 
porter will now begin work." He was fond of that 
designation and often in conversation referred to 
himself as " The Star's cub reporter." With pencil 
he wrote out on newspaper copy-paper, with much 
scratching and interlining, the editorial, " Blood, 
Iron, and Gold," which appeared the following day. 
His first editorial, however, was, a short time before, 
written on suggestion of Mr. Kirkwood, a brief piece 
on the death of Dr. W. S. Fitzsimons, of Kansas 
City, who was killed by a bomb in an airplane attack 
on a hospital in France — the first American officer 
to fall in the war. 

The same day Colonel Roosevelt wrote another 
editorial for later publication. He was good nature 
itself that Saturday morning in the office, joked and 
chatted with members of the staff, and seemed to be 
enjo3dng the novelty of his new connection. 

The following Sunday there was a luncheon of The 
Star family at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Kirkwood, 
at which the " new cub reporter " made himself 
thoroughly at home. Editors, reporters, and men 
of the mechanical and circulation departments were 
there and had luncheon with the Colonel. He 
mingled with all and took delight in chatting with 
them of their work. During the afternoon he made 
an informal talk to " the family " out on the lawn, 
in which he commended the spirit of working to- 
gether shown in the expression " The Star family." 



INTRODUCTION xxxiii 

He spoke, too, of his long acquaintance with the 
aims and purposes of Mr. Nelson which were the 
aims and purposes of The Star, and said, as he had 
said before, that The Star was one of two daily 
newspapers with which he would be proud of a 
connection. 

The arrangement was that Colonel Roosevelt was 
to telegraph his editorials to The Star from Oyster 
Bay or wherever he was when he wrote them. They 
were put in type in The Star office and sent out from 
there for simultaneous publication in a selected list 
of about fifty newspapers. These included the best- 
known newspapers in the country and represented 
every section. The service was without charge be- 
yond telegraph tolls, it being The Star's wish to give 
the widest diffusion possible to Colonel Roosevelt's 
ideas on the conduct of the war through the best 
channel in each city. 

Frequently there were suggestions from The Star 
to the Colonel. Always he was gracious in his treat- 
ment of those suggestions, invariably writing along 
the lines indicated and often amplifying and better- 
ing them. On the other hand — except in two in- 
stances — the Colonel's editorials were printed just 
as they were written, and if any change in copy were 
considered advisable it was made only after he had 
been consulted by wire and had approved it. 

From the start the country was much interested 
in the expressions from the Colonel. The news- 
papers which received them printed them faithfully 
and conspicuously. However, the service had been 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION 

in operation not more than a fortnight before there 
came rumbles of disapproval and doubt, almost 
altogether from newspapers published south of 
Mason and Dixon's Line. 

One of the early editorials, entitled " Sam Weller 
and Mr. Snodgrass," presented Uncle Sam, " eight 
months after Germany went to war with us, and we 
severed relations with Germany as the first move in 
our sixty days' stern foremost drift into, not going 
to, war," as the boastful Mr. Snodgrass, still taking 
off his coat and announcing in a loud voice what he 
was about to do. This drew from the mayor of 
Abilene, Texas, the. following letter to The Star- 
Telegram, of Fort Worth, Texas, which was publish- 
ing the Roosevelt articles: 

Abilene, Texas, October 3, 1917. Fort Worth Star-Tele- 
gram, Fort Worth, Tex. The Roosevelt article appearing in 
your paper of this date is nothing short of the expression of 
the thoughts of a seditious conspirator who should be shot 
dead, and the Editor-in-Chief of your paper should be tarred 
and feathered for publishing it, and your paper should be 
excluded from the mails of the United States. You may 
publish this if you wish, and stop my paper. 

E. N. KiRBY 

Mayor of Abilene 

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram promptly pub- 
lished Mayor Kirby's letter, under the caption " The 
Retort Courteous," adding the following: 

The Editor-in-Chief presents his compliments to the 
Mayor of Abilene and begs to say that should he conclude 
personally to conduct a tar and feather expedition in our 
direction, he will experience no great difficulty in locating the 



INTRODUCTION xxxv 

said Editor-in-Chief. Meanwhile we can assure him that his 
reception will not be lacking in hospitality or warmth. 

The mayor of Abilene and the editor did not meet. 
Later, in an editorial devoted to apologists for the 
delay in making war who were saying, " Why cry 
over spilt milk? " Colonel Roosevelt referred to the 
incident, saying: 

Recently the mayor of Abilene, Texas, expressed his dis- 
approval of my pointing out that we, as a Nation, had wholly 
failed to prepare, by saying that I was " a seditious conspir- 
ator who ought to be shot dead," and that the editor of the 
newspaper publishing the article " should be tarred and 
feathered." Although differing in method of expressior, this 
slight homicidal bleat of the gentle-souled (and doubtless 
entirely harmless) mayor of Abilene, Texas, is exactly similar 
in thought to the utterances of all these sheeplike creatures 
who raise quavering or incoherent protests against every 
honest and patriotic man who points out the damage done by 
our failure to prepare. 



V 

When the " cub reporter " came to take on his 
" new job," he learned for the first time of the condi- 
tions at Camp Funston, in Kansas, the big national 
army training camp of the Middle West, to which 
his old friend, Major-General Leonard Wood, had 
been assigned. The drafted men were assembled 
there from the farms and towns of the Middle West 
before adequate provision had been made for their 
care or their training. They were trained with 
wooden cannon, and broomsticks served in place of 
rifles. Colonel Roosevelt wrote an editorial entitled 



xxxvl INTRODUCTION 

" Broomstick Preparedness," which touched mildly 
on the conditions at Funston. The expression 
" Broomstick Preparedness " caught popular fancy 
as typifying the Administration's delay in many as- 
pects of war preparation. It stuck in the public 
mind. It was widely used by newspapers and by 
speakers who thought the Government was not 
showing sufficient speed- An editorial, " Broomstick 
Apologists," followed, directed at people who an- 
swered criticism of delay by making excuses for 
delay. 

From the beginning Colonel Roosevelt had in the • 
main devoted his articles to speeding up the prepara- 
tions for making war. The boosting of Liberty bonds 
and the various war drives, the pacifists and hyphen- 
ated enemies on our own soil, were not overlooked by 
any means, but the thing that seared his soul was 
the lack of speed in making ready for actual warfare. 
When his connection with The Star began, we had 
been officially at war nearly six months, and how 
little the Government had accomplished toward 
equipping for actual warfare was continuously held 
up in his articles. 

Colonel Roosevelt used the method, followed by 
newspaper writers who earnestly seek to achieve 
results, of pounding continually on a few things, 
dressing each article in different language, but keep- 
ing to the front all the time the central idea, present- 
ing the same thoughts in article after article, but 
striving in each so to change the presentation that 
the ideas would finally enter the reader's mind and 



INTRODUCTION xxxvii 

stir him to action. Mr. Nelson used this method in 
the conduct of The Star. For many years, beginning 
with its first publication, The Star advocated parks 
and boulevards for Kansas City. It hammered away 
on the subject in nearly every issue. It took almost 
twenty years to do it, but at the end a splendid sys- 
tem of parks and boulevards stands as a monument 
to The Star's persistence. 

Article after article Colonel Roosevelt devoted to 
the slow speed in war-making until there was finally 
a response in Washington. It heard from public 
opinion. War-making was speeded up, although at 
the best and in the end there were many, many 
deficiencies in our war machine. 

Colonel Roosevelt's criticisms of the Administra- 
tion were not widely popular. The Star never had 
any idea they would be popular, but it believed they 
were right and for the real good of the country. As 
he had foreseen when the connection was made, 
" Many of your subscribers will be perfectly furious 
at The Star for printing my editorials." They were. 
They wrote to The Star to denounce the Colonel for 
writing the articles and The Star for printing them. 
In popular discussion in the Middle West forms of 
disapproval ranged from " He should stand by the 
President " to " He should be stood before a stone 
wall and shot." Generally the user of the latter 
phrase added " at sunrise." That was an expression 
often heard. It was used by political orators with 
effect. Colonel Roosevelt knew full well of the feel- 
ing in the West and South toward his articles. He 



xxxvili INTRODUCTION 

wrote once asking what effect the storm was having 
on The Star. Never a word from him to show he 
cared one whit about himself. He knew he was doing 
the right thing for the country; he went ahead. 

The frank truth is, there was a strong and active 
pacifist element in the territory in which The Star 
circulated. It had not been for preparedness. It had 
voted for President Wilson in 191 6 largely " because 
he kept us out of war." Undeniably that idea was 
popular. A candidate for governor in a neighboring 
state, running on the Republican ticket, had made a 
campaign identical with the Democratic slogan and 
had carried the state, which at the same time gave 
its vote to the Democratic presidential candidate. 
But once we were in war the people of this section 
responded nobly; they went to the limit, but for a 
long time after we were in war they did not approve 
the prodding-up of Washington. The hostility to- 
ward the Roosevelt articles in the South was more 
pronounced. At the beginning of the service ten 
Southern newspapers were taking it. Their state- 
ments about discontinuance ran from " We find 
further publication inadvisable in our territory " to 
an apology to their readers for ever having allowed 
the Roosevelt articles to enter their columns. 

Colonel Roosevelt was not without defenders; 
many of them thought and said he was rendering 
the greatest service to the country in all his career. 
But in the excited state of mind in the spring of 191 8, 
when the Germans were driving toward Paris, it re- 
quired courage to defend the articles. Many, how- 



INTRODUCTION xxxlx 

ever, spoke out boldly; others did not. Party lines 
were not followed strictly. Republicans were not so 
bitter as men of the President's party. " We must 
stand by the President " had a popular appeal 
regardless of whether the Government was function- 
ing efficiently or not. The view was widely held that 
it was unpatriotic to criticize the President. Fre- 
quently it was charged that Colonel Roosevelt's 
purposes were political, not patriotic. The articles 
were often decried as pro-German propaganda and 
The Star was branded as pro-German for publishing 
them. 

In April, 191 8, when this feeling was at its height, 
when the people in Kansas City's territory were in a 
highly inflamed state of feeling toward criticism of 
the Government, Colonel Roosevelt sent a ringing 
editorial, " Freedom Stands with her Back to the 
Wall," which The Star did not consider it advisable 
to publish. It had no doubt of the entire righteous- 
ness of the criticism passed on the officials at Wash- 
ington, for the fruition of their slowness was shown 
in the poor showing America was making in these 
critical days, but it could see no good to come from 
the publication: in its opinion the article would only 
further inflame Colonel Roosevelt's enemies and 
irritate his friends. Colonel Roosevelt was informed 
of the office opinion of this article as he was on a 
later article (" How Not to Adjourn Politics," June 
25) which was not published. He acquiesced in the 
decision, saying that he could readily conceive of 
local conditions which made their publication ill- 



xl INTRODUCTION 

advised. He asked that they be telegraphed to two 
other newspapers, which was done. The Star was 
wilHng to go as far as it could go without, in its 
judgment, lessening the effectiveness of the articles 
in accomplishing the speeding-up of the war, but it 
would not go beyond this point. 

In July, when criticism had caused the removal of 
many inefficients at Washington and when Ameri- 
can troops were beginning to reach France, The 
Star was barred from the Public Library at Fulton, 
Missouri, an intensely Democratic town in Central 
Missouri, " for disloyalty to the present Administra- 
tion." The notice read: 

Dear Sir : By order from the library board of the Public 
Library I am advised to have you discontinue our subscrip- 
tion to The Daily Star and The Times. Disloyalty to the 
present Administration is the reason given for the action 
taken. 

Yours sincerely 

Frances F. Watson 

Librarian 

Answering this editorially. The Star said that 
throughout the war it had taken the course of calling 
attention to the mistakes of the Government rather 
than remaining silent on its mistakes; that it did not 
believe in saying the country was doing finely when 
it was not; that it believed in exposing inefficiency 
and rooting it out. It directed attention to results 
already accomplished by criticism in bringing into 
the war preparations men like Schwab, Goethals, 
Stettinius, March, Baruch, and others, adding: 
"The Star is proud to belong to the little group of 



INTRODUCTION xli 

constructive critics, including preeminently Colonel 
Roosevelt, who worked to get wrong conditions 
changed and to contribute to the present result, 
which to-day is the salvation of the cause we fight 
for. For it to have done anything else would have 
been faithlessness to its trust." 

When at last the stirring-up of the Administration 
had borne fruit and American troops were in France 
and on the way in considerable, though disappoint- 
ing, numbers, Colonel Roosevelt slowed down his 
bombardment of the Washington authorities. His 
campaign had produced results. He was right in 
doing all he could to speed up war preparations, and 
he stood his ground in the face of widespread censure 
in the w^y he always did. [Hostile newspapers had 
demanded that the Postmaster-General suppress the 
circulation of the Roosevelt articles; indeed, a post- 
ofifice inspector had visited Kansas City with the 
idea of denying The Star admission to the mails, 
but the Administration made no further move in 
this direction. 

Even when the turning of the tide had set In, 
Roosevelt's demand was for men, more men, and 
then more men for France. He would have In all 
six or seven million men In training, and four mil- 
lion American soldiers in France in the spring of 
19 1 9. In the first article he sent after the news of 
Quentin's death, he said: 

Now and always afterwards we of this country will walk 
with our heads high because of the men who face death and 
wounds, and so many of whom have given their lives for 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

this nation and for the great ideals of humanity across the 
sea. But we must not let our pride and our admiration 
evaporate in mere pride, in mere admiration of what others 
have done. VVe must put the whole strength of this nation 
back of the fighting men at the front. We owe it to them. 

Later on the good effect of Colonel Roosevelt's 
criticism was widely recognized. The Nation, one 
of the Colonel's bitterest opponents, in general a 
strong supporter of the Administration, said of his 
editorials: " It is largely to him that we owe our 
ability to discuss peace terms and to criticize at all." 

Summing up the effect of Colonel Roosevelt's cam- 
paign to speed up our part in the war, The Star said 
editorially : 

There were periods of intolerance when neither Mr. Roose- 
velt nor The Star was under any illusions as to the reception 
that would be given frank criticism. But it was essential that 
such criticism be made in order to correct evils that were 
really threatening the outcome of the war. . . . 

The selective draft was the big achievement of the Admin- 
istration in 1 91 7. But having prepared this, the Government 
proceeded in most leisurely fashion, apparently not getting 
the slightest comprehension of the danger to the Allied cause 
resulting from Russia's collapse. 

The War Department continued to be run, as it had been 
in the past, by amiable old gentlemen who were wholly unfit 
for the task. Although airplanes had become an essential 
feature of modern warfare, it was not 'until weeks after war 
had been declared that the department sent a commission to 
Europe to learn what a military airplane was. Rifles are usu- 
ally regarded as a part of the military equipment of troops. 
But it was two months after the declaration of war before 
the W^ar Department decided what type of rifle to make. An 
army of millions of men was certain to need uniforms, but 
the easy-going quartermaster-general turned down the offer 
of the wool manufacturers' association for the entire output 



INTRODUCTION xliii 

of the country and the result was that the soldiers went into 
the winter without warm clothing or overcoats. As for ar- 
tillery, the incapacity was complete. 

Meanwhile we sent a small expeditionary force to France, 
and in the autumn began sending troops across in a leisurely 
way, at the rate of ten thousand a week. 

Then suddenly, late in March, with the German army 
driving straight on Paris and the Allied defenses giving way, 
under the appeal of Lloyd George we suddenly woke to the 
fact that we had been playing with the war. From that time 
on we acted as if we had a man's job, and we got into the line 
just in time to save the situation. 

All through the fall and winter of last year what Mr. 
Roosevelt and the other outspoken critics were trying to do 
was to arouse the country and the Administration to the 
magnitude of the task and to the danger from delay. They 
succeeded only partly. But they did succeed to the extent of 
forcing the removal of incompetent departmental chiefs, and 
the substitution of efficient men who were able to handle 
the emergency when the Administration finally discovered 
that the emergency existed. 

Looking back over the events of the last eighteen months, 
we believe no fair-minded American can fail to perceive the 
patriotic service done by Mr. Roosevelt and other critics, 
who were seeking to awaken the Government from a lethargy 
that just missed proving fatal to the Allied cause. 



VI 

Colonel Roosevelt's last visit to his desk in the 
editorial rooms of The Star was early in October, 
1918. It struck those who had been associated with 
him that he was not quite as fit as usual. I asked 
him if it were true the physicians had placed him on 
a diet. He said it was, but, to be frank, he had not 
given much heed to their recommendations. In a 
discussion at his desk with men of the editorial force 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

a recent article about Roosevelt by George Creel 
came up. " I must admit," said Colonel Roosevelt, 
laughing, " he took a rather jaundiced view of me." 

Mr. Kirkwood was away in the army, but Mrs. 
Kirkwood was in Kansas City and the Colonel 
stayed at their home during his visit. At this time a 
subject was brought up which had been talked over 
along in the summer — a visit from him to the battle 
front to v/rite at first hand of the American forces. 
Newspapers which were receiving the service and 
others which had heard of the suggestion were eager 
for Roosevelt articles from France, but from the 
first the Colonel had demurred and now said a final 
" No." His reason was that he could not go as a 
private citizen, as he had been denied permission 
to go as a soldier; it would not only be unbecoming 
for a former president of the United States to go in 
any newspaper capacity, but how to treat him would 
be an embarrassing question to France. 

The tide had turned toward the Allies, and the 
country was certain the defeat of the enemy was 
a question of a short time. Colonel Roosevelt's 
articles turned to a discussion of the kind of peace 
there should be and examinations of the President's 
" Fourteen Points " and his notes to Austria. On 
November 1 1 — the day the armistice was signed — 
it was considered necessary for Colonel Roosevelt to 
go to a hospital in New York. From his hospital 
room he telegraphed that day an editorial joining 
in the general rejoicing over peace and appraising 
tersely our part in the war. 



INTRODUCTION xlv 

A few days later there came an editorial prompted 
by a letter from a woman friend in California. 
Visiting this friend was another woman whose son 
had died of influenza in the navy. That mother had 
said she had given her boy proudly to her country, 
" but if only he could have died with a gun in his 
hand — a little glory for him and a thought for me 
that my sacrifice had not been useless." The Cali- 
fornia friend had written: "There must be other 
mothers who feel they have laid their sacrifices on 
cold altars. You have written much that will com- 
fort the mothers whose sons have paid with their 
bodies in battle. Is n't there something you can say 
to comfort these other mothers? " 

The letter touched Colonel Roosevelt deeply. " I 
felt a real pang when I received this letter," he 
WTote, " because the thought suggested had been in 
my mind and yet I had failed to express it." The 
editorial, " Sacrifices on Cold Altars," which he 
WTOte in response, gave consolation from the heart. 
It made it clear that all who had given their lives in 
the country's service, whether in action or from dis- 
ease, stood on " an exact level of service and sacrifice 
and honor and glory." It concluded: 

The mother or wife whose son or husband has died , whether 
in battle or by fever or in the accident inevitable in hurriedly 
preparing a modern army for war, must never feel that the 
sacrifice has'been laid on " a cold altar." There is no gradation 
of honor among these gallant men and no essential gradation 
of service. They all died that we might live; our debt is to 
all of them, and we can pay it even personally only by striving 
so to live as to bring a little nearer the day when justice and 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 

mercy shall rule in our own homes and among the nations of 
the world. 

From his entrance to the hospital until his depar- 
ture on Christmas day, the editorials were less fre- 
quent. The Peace Conference, the Congressional 
elections, and the League of Nations were uppermost 
in public thought, and on these subjects the Colonel 
wrote several editorials. Both Colonel Roosevelt 
and The Star were anxious to find some means to 
lessen the chance of war through international organ- 
ization. Both feared, from President Wilson's ad- 
dresses, that he had in view some grandiose plan that 
would be impractical. In December a member of 
The Star's staff visited the Colonel in Roosevelt 
Hospital, New York. At that time he had WTitten 
one or two editorials discussing the subject In a 
tentative way. He was asked if he did not think he 
could say something more positive. 

" I doubt It," he said. " I feel there is so little that 
really can be done by any form of treaty to prevent 
war that it would be disappointing for me to point 
it out. Any treaty adopted under the influence of 
war emotions would be like the good resolutions 
adopted at a mass meeting. We have an anti-vice 
^ crusade. Ever>'body is aroused. The movement 

\ culminates in a big meeting and we adopt resolu- 
tions abolishing vice. But vice is n't abolished that 
way." 

Correspondence on the subject followed, and De- 
cember 28, 191 8, he wtote this letter to the member 
of the staff who had been talking with him: 



INTRODUCTION xlvii 

In substance, or, as our friends the diplomats say, in 
principle, I am in hearty accord with you. But do you really 
think we ought to guarantee to stand with France and Italy 
in all future continental wars? It 's a pretty big guarantee 
and I don't know whether it would be made good. Indeed, I 
don't know whether it ought to be made good. I am most 
heartily with France and England now, but I certainly would 
not have been with France fifty years ago or with England 
sixty years ago, and our clear duty to antagonize Germany 
has slowly become apparent during the last thirty or forty 
years. Remember that you are freer to write unsigned edi- 
torials than I am w-hen I use my signature. If you propose a 
little more than can be carried out, no harm comes, but if I 
do so it may hamper me for years. However, I will do my 
best to write you such an article as you suggest; and then 
probably one on what I regard as infinitely more important, 
namely, our business to prepare for our own self-defense. 

As for Wilson having with him the bulk of the people who 
are taken in by this name [The League of Nations], I attach 
less importance to this than you do. He is a conscienceless 
rhetorician and he will always get the well-meaning, foolish 
creatures who are misled by names. At present anything 
he says about the World League is in the domain of empty 
and windy eloquence. The important point will be reached 
when he has to make definite the thing for which he stands. 

The article written in response to the promise In 
this letter was Colonel Roosevelt's last contribution 
to The Star. It was dictated at his home at Oyster 
Bay, January 3, which was Friday. His secretary 
expected to take it to him for correction the following 
Monday. Instead an early call on the telephone that 
morning told of his passing away in his sleep. 

Ralph Stout 



ROOSEVELT 

IN THE KANSAS CITY STAR 

• 

DR. FITZSIMONS'S DEATH ^ 
September 17, 1917 

The first name on the casualty list of the American 
army in France is that of Dr. William T. Fitzsimons, 
of Kansas City, killed in a German air raid on our 
hospitals. Dr. Fitzsimons had already served for 
some time in a French hospital. As soon as this Na- 
tion went to war he volunteered for service abroad. 

There is sometimes a symbolic significance in the 
first death in a war. It is so in this case. To the 
mother he leaves, the personal grief must In some 
degree be relieved by the pride in the fine and gallant 
life which has been crowned by the great sacrifice. 
We, his fellow countrymen, share this pride and 
sympathize with this sorrow. But his death should 
cause us more than pride or sorrow; for in striking 
fashion it illustrates the two lessons this war should 
especially teach us — German brutality and Amer- 
ican unpreparedness. 

The first lesson is the horror of Germany's calcu- 
lated brutality. As part of her deliberate policy of 

^ Although Colonel Roosevelt did not begin his regular contribu- 
tions to The Star until October i, the death of Dr. W. T. Fitzsimons, 
of Kansas City, moved him to send this article. 



2 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

frightfulness she has carried on a systematic cam- 
paign of murder against hospitals and hospital ships. 
The first American in our army to die was killed in 
one of these typical raids. We should feel stern 
indignation against Germany for the brutality of 
which this was merely one among innumerable in- 
stances. But we should feel even sterner indignation 
towards — and fathomless contempt for — the base 
or unthinking folly of those Americans who aid and 
abet the authors of such foul wickedness; and these 
include all men and women who in any way apolo- 
gize for or uphold German}^ who assail any of our 
allies, who oppose our taking active part in the war, 
or who desire an inconclusive peace. 

The second lesson is our unpreparedness. We are 
in the eighth month since Germ^any went to war 
against us; and we are still only at the receiving 
end of the game. We have not in France a single 
man on the fighting line. The first American killed 
was a doctor. No German soldier is yet in jeopardy 
from anything we have done. 

The military work we are now doing is work of 
preparation. It should have been done just three 
years ago. Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in 
time. 

BLOOD, IRON, AND GOLD 

September 23, 191 7 

Bismarck announced that his policy for Germany 
was one of blood and iron. The men who now guide, 




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BLOOD, IRON, AND GOLD 3 

and for some decades have guided, German Inter- 
national policy have added gold as the third weapon 
in Germany's armory. 

To a policy based on callous disregard of death and 
suffering, and the brutal use of force, they have 
added the habitual and extensive employment of 
corruption as a means for weakening their foes and 
bending other nations to their service. 

The Administration at Washington recently made 
public the proof that Ambassador Bernstorff, on 
behalf of the German Government, was, up to the 
very last moment of his stay, engaged in efforts to 
bribe with German money American organizations 
or individuals who could be used to further Ger- 
many's purpose by protesting against war, demand- 
ing peace at any price, opposing the measures 
necessar>^ for war, denouncing the Allied nations, 
praising unpreparedness, or by some other of the 
methods habitual with pro-German Senators, Con- 
gressmen, editors, heads of peace societies and the 
like. 

No well-informed man was surprised at the revela- 
tion. Every reasonably well-informed man, who has 
known about matters at Washington, has known 
that for nearly three years German money and gov- 
ernmental power has been used for the corruption of 
American newspapers and pacifist organizations and 
for the pay of German, and the bribery of native, 
scoundrels to wreck our industries with dynamite 
and in all ways debauch our political life. The Gov- 
ernmentj from the highest official down, knew all 



4 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

these facts over two years ago. The New York 
World published the names of some of the editors 
and other individuals who had received money, and 
the amounts received. The Austrian Ambassador, 
Dumba, and two of the German attaches, Boy-Ed 
and Von Papen, were dismissed for inspiring and 
countenancing the intrigues. It was absolutely im- 
possible that what they did was not ordered and 
supervised by Bernstorff, under the direction of the 
Berlin Government. It was deeply to our discredit 
that we did not then show the courage and manliness 
to break at once with Germany, instead of hiding 
our heads in the sand so as to avoid seeing the guilt 
of the German Government, and punishing the 
minor instruments of wrongdoing who, under no con- 
ceivable circumstances, would or could have acted 
save as their superiors bade them act. Germany has 
hitherto been able to do but little against us with 
blood and iron; gold has been her weapon, and her 
agents have been the foes of our own household. 

Every man in this country who is now playing the 
pro-German game should be made to feel that he 
must overcome a presumption of guilty motive. 
There are misguided pro-Germans who are unin- 
fluenced by corrupt motives, just as there were in 
the Civil War copperheads who were merely mis- 
guided and not conscious wrongdoers. But these 
men are in mighty unpleasant company! 

The pacifist, the man who wishes a peace without 
victory, the supporter of Senator La Follette or 
Senator Stone, the man who in any way now aids 



GHOST DANCE OF THE SHADOW HUNS 5 

Germany, may be honest; but he stands cheek by 
jowl with hired traitors, and he is serving the cause 
of the mahgnant and unscrupulous enemies of his 
country. 



THE GHOST DANCE OF THE SHADOW 

HUNS 

October i, 191 7 

Ten days ago a ghost dance was held in St. Paul 
under the auspices of the Non- Partisan League, with 
Senator La Follette as the star performer. We have 
the authority of the German Kaiser for the use of the 
word Hun in a descriptive sense, as representing the 
ideal to which he wished his soldiers in their actions 
to approximate. It is therefore fair to use the word 
descriptively as a substitute for the German in this 
war. It is also fair to use it descriptively of the 
German sympathizer in this country, of the man who 
aids and abets Germany by condoning the German 
offenses against us, by seeking to raise class division 
in this country, with, of course, the attendant benefit 
to Germany; by screaming against the war, or in 
favor of an inconclusive peace; or by belittling or 
sneering at or d.eclaring inopportune the effort to 
arouse the spirit of Americanism. The Americans 
who thus serve Germany deserve the title of Shadow 
Huns. 

It was to me a matter of sincere regret to have the 
Non-Partisan League play the part it did at St. Paul. 



6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

in connection with the meeting which Senator La 
Follette addressed. They held what was in effect a 
disloyalty day festival. When the Non-Partisan 
League movement was first started, I was inclined 
to hail it, because I am exceedingly anxious to do 
everything in my power to grapple with and remedy 
every injustice or wrong or mere failure to give ample 
opportunity to the farmer. With most of the 
avowed objects and with some of the methods of the 
Non-Partisan League I was in entire sympathy, al- 
though there were certain things it did which I felt 
should be condemned, and certain ways of achieving 
its objects which I believed to be mischievous. But 
when the League, on the disloyalty day in question, 
ranged itself on the side of the allies of Germany and 
the enemies of this country, it became necessary for 
every loyal American severely to condemn it. Mor- 
ally, although doubtless not legally, it thereby came 
perilously near ranging itself beside the LW.W., the 
German-American Alliance, and the German Social- 
ist party machine in America. 

When I spoke in Minneapolis three men spoke 
from the same platform with me. One was that fine 
and loyal American, Governor Burnquist, of Swed- 
ish ancestry. One was a blacksmith, born in Sweden, 
a former member of the Socialist party, who left the 
party within the last six months when he became 
convinced that it was the tool or ally of German 
autocracy. The third was another working-man, of 
German birth. 

At the meeting in Wisconsin I was on the platform 



GHOST DANCE OF THE SHADOW HUNS 7 

with the Mayor of Racine, an American citizen of 
German birth. My companions throughout the trip 
were Judge Harry Olson, of Swedish parentage, and 
Mr. Otto Butz, of German parentage, both of whom 
represent that kind of Americanism to which we all 
must subscribe if we are to be good Americans. 

The Americanism of all these men is the American- 
ism I profess, and it is the exact antithesis of the 
attitude of the Shadow Huns, who, under the lead of 
native-born Americans like Messrs. La Follette and 
Townley, by their utterances, stir dissensions among 
our own people and weaken us in the prosecution of 
the war. 

The two working-men of whom I speak, the man 
born in Sweden and the man born in Germany, spoke 
with rugged emphasis of their devotion to this 
country, and of their sense of the duty of every man 
fit to be called an American in this crisis. They 
emphasized the fact that Germany's social system 
was based upon the duty of the average man to 
cringe before the insolence of his superiors and his 
right himself to behave with insolence to his in- 
feriors. It is for this system of cringing abasement 
before the powerful, and of brutal insolence to the 
weak for which the Shadow Huns in this country 
stand when they directly or indirectly talk against 
our Government for going to war or talk against any 
step which it takes for the efficient waging of the 
war; and, above all, when they directly or indirectly 
apologize for or champion Germany. 

It is the duty of every American citizen fearlessly, 



8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

but truthfully, to criticize not only his Government 
but his people, for wrongdoing, or for failure to do 
what is right. It is his duty to obey the injunction 
of President Wilson by insisting upon pitiless pub- 
licity of inefficiency, of subordination of public to 
private considerations, or of any other form of gov- 
ernmental failure to perform duty. Such criticism 
is absolutely indispensable if we are to do our duty 
in this war, and if we are to adopt a permanent 
policy of preparedness which will make this Nation 
safe. But the men who oppose the war; who fail to 
support the Government in every measure which 
really tends to the efficient prosecution of the war; 
and above all who in any shape or way champion the 
cause and the actions of Germany, show themselves 
to be the Huns within our own gates and the allies 
of the men whom our sons and brothers are crossing 
the ocean to fight. 

I do not admire these Shadow Huns. But least 
of all do I admire those among them, whether 
Senators, Congressmen, or public officials of any 
other kind who, although on Uncle Sam's pay-roll, 
nevertheless seek to stab Uncle Sam in the back. 



SAM WELLER AND MR. SNODGRASS 
October 2, 191 7 

Readers of " Pickwick," if such there still be, will 
recall the time when Mr. Pickwick was arrested and 
some of his followers resisted arrest. Sam Weller 



SAM WELLER AND MR. SNODGR.A,SS 9 

made no boasts; but he spoiled the looks of various 
opponents. Mr. Snodgrass began ostentatiously to 
take off his coat, announcing in a loud voice that he 
was going to begin. But he gave no further trouble. 

Over eight months have elapsed since Germany- 
went to war with us, and we severed relations with 
Germany as the first move in our sixty days' stern 
foremost drift into, not going to, war, but admitting 
that we were already at war. During those eight 
months we have paid the penalty for our criminally 
complete failure to prepare during the previous 
three years by not having yet to our credit one single 
piece of completed achievement. The Administra- 
tion has unwisely striven to cover this past failure 
to prepare, and present failure to achieve, by occa- 
sional grandiloquent pronunciamentos as to the 
wonderful things we are going to do in the future; 
and usually the language used is designed to con- 
vince ignorant people that these things have already 
been done. 

One day it is announced that we have discovered 
an infallible remedy against submarine attacks; and 
the next day it is announced that the toll by sub- 
marines is heavier than during any previous month. 
We read that the British drive is successful, but stub- 
bornly resisted; that some thousands of prisoners 
have been taken; and that the losses have been 
terribly heavy. We read at the same time that we 
are going to have an immense army of aircraft — 
some time next spring. And actually there is less 
boasting over the former statement than over the 



10 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

latter! We read of the valor and suffering of the 
French in some heroic assault; and the Administra- 
tion proudly announces that, after eight months, the 
drafted men are beginning to assemble in their camps 
— and omits to mention that they have neither guns 
nor uniforms, are short of blankets and sweaters. 

So far the Sam Wellers who have done things are 
our allies. Uncle Sam is still complacently engaged 
in taking off his coat, like Mr. Snodgrass. Under 
such circumstances it is unwise for him to announce 
overloudly what he is going to do when at last he 
begins. Let him wait until he has done it; and 
meanwhile bend all his energies to doing it, and doing 
it soon. Brag is a good dog. But Holdfast is a 
better. 

BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS 
October 4, 191 7 

AlT present we Americans have two prime duties. 

The first is to make the best of actual conditions; 
to prepare our army, navy, merchant marine, air 
service, munition plants, agriculture, food conserva- 
tion, and everything else as speedily as possible, 
so as to fight this war to a completely victorious 
conclusion. 

The second is not to fool ourselves, but to face 
the fact of our complete and lamentable unprepared- 
ness. And to inaugurate a policy of permanent pre- 
paredness which will prevent our ever again being 
caught in such a humiliating condition. 



BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS ii 

The men of the national guard and of the drafted 
army are of admirable type. I do not believe that 
any other great nation can produce quite their equals 
on such a scale as we can; the zeal, energy, and 
adaptable intelligence with which they are doing all 
they can in the various camps must be a matter of 
pride for all Americans. There is all the more reason 
why such first-class material should be given a first- 
class chance for speedy and efficient action. It has 
not been given that chance. The steps we as a nation 
are now taking ought to have been taken three years 
ago. Failure to take them then has meant broom- 
stick preparedness now. Failure to take them as a 
permanent policy now means broomstick prepared-, 
ness in some future vital crisis when we may not 
have allies willing and able to protect us while we 
slowly prepare to meet the enemy. 

The Ordnance Bureau of the War Department 
admits that we have not rifles for our national army, 
but attempts to excuse matters by saying that it is 
of no consequence because we shall have rifles a few 
months hence when our men are ready to go abroad. 
The admission is correct. The excuse is not. Even 
for training, it is better to arm infantrymen each 
with the weapon he is to use rather than to give each 
man a broomstick or to give every four men an 
antiquated rifle which cannot be used in service, and 
most of our artillery regiments at present either have 
no guns or wooden guns or, in rather rare cases, old- 
style guns which cannot be matched against any 
present-day artillery. Moreover, and this is the vital 



12 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

point, we now have the time to prepare only because 
the English and French fleets and armies protect us. 
Eight months have passed since Germany openly 
went to war with us. As yet we have not rifles for 
our infantry. As yet we have not guns for our artil- 
lery. It will be at least a year after we were dragged 
into the war before our army will have received the 
weapons with which we are to wage the war. 

This is broomstick preparedness, and there is not 
the slightest use in trying to justify or excuse broom- 
stick preparedness. 



THE BONDHOLDERS AND THE PEOPLE 

October 7, 1917 

Not many years ago one of the favorite cries of 
those who wished to exploit for their own advantage 
the often justifiable popular unrest and discontent 
was that " the people were oppressed in the interest 
of the bondholders." The more ardent souls of this 
type wished to repudiate the national debt, to " wipe 
it out as with a sponge," in order to remove the 
" oppression." The bondholders were always held up 
as greedy creatures who had obtained an unfair 
advantage of the people as a whole. 

Well, the Liberty Loan now off"ers the chance to 
make the people and the bondholders interchange- 
able terms. The bonds are issued in such a way that 
the farmer and the wage-worker have exactly the 
same chance as the banker to purchase and hold as 



FACTORIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP 13 

many or as few as they wish. No matter how small a 
man's means, he can get some part of a bond if he 
wishes. The Government and the big financiers are 
doing all they can to make the sale as widely dis- 
tributed as possible. Some bankers are serving 
without pay in the effort to put all the facts before 
the people as a whole, and so make the loan in very 
truth a people's loan. It rests with the people them- 
selves to decide whether it shall be such. 

The Government must have the money. It is a 
patriotic duty to purchase the bonds. And they offer 
an absolutely safe investment. The money invested 
is invested on the best security in the world — that 
of the United States; of the American Nation itself. 
The money cannot be lost unless the United States 
is destroyed, and in that case we would all of us be 
smashed anyhow, so that it would not make any 
difference. The people can, if they choose, now 
make themselves the bondholders. If they do not so 
choose, and if they force Wall Street to become the 
largest purchaser of the bonds, which must be bought 
somehow, then they will have no right in the future 
to grumble about the bondholders as a special class. 
We can now, all of us, join that class if we wish. 

FACTORIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP 

October 10, 191 7 

The training camps for the drafted men of the na- 
tional army are huge factories for turning out first- 
class American citizens. Not only are they fitting 



14 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

our people for war; they are fitting them for the 
work of peace. They are making patriotism, love of 
country, devotion to the flag, and a sense of duty to 
others living facts, instead of unreal phrases. The 
public schools are laboratories of Americanism for 
our children; the training camps are laboratories of 
Americanism for our young men. 

I have just seen a party of drafted men from'the 
East Side of New York City start for Camp Upton 
with a band playing, an American flag flying. And 
two of their number in front, one dressed as Uncle 
Sam, and the other as the Kaiser, dragged along in 
manacles. There is no fifty-fifty Americanism in 
men with such spirit. A captain at this camp, a 
Plattsburg man, told me that his company of East 
Side New Yorkers showed all the intelligence and the 
zealous desire to learn which the fine young college 
graduates at Plattsburg have shown. Another cap- 
tain told me that one of his men, a young Jew, had 
come to him and said that at first the East Siders had 
hated coming, not knowing what was ahead of them, 
but that now they felt that they were in a University 
of American Citizenship. A surgeon in the camp 
told me that men also, proved physically lacking after 
a week's trial, were in most cases bitterly chagrined 
at being sent away. A colonel from a Southern camp 
has reported that already his country boys from the 
remote farms are straightening and broadening mor- 
ally, mentally, and physically, and that the improve- 
ment is really incalculable. From every camp we 
hear of the eagerness with which the men are doing 



FACTORIES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP 15 

their duty, of their resourcefulness and of the real 
patriotism which is being rapidly learned. All this 
means not merely good soldiers in war, but good 
citizens in peace; it means an immense growth in 
the spirit of Americanism. 

The young men are learning to be efficient, alert, 
self- respectful and respectful of others; they are 
learning to scorn laziness, slackness, and cowardice. 
All are serving on a precise equality of privilege and 
of duty and are judged each only on his merits. The 
sons of the foreign-born learn that they are exactly 
as good Americans as any one else, and when they 
return to their home their families will learn it, too. 

Let all good Americans insist that now, without 
delay, we make this state of affairs our permanent 
national policy by law. We have built the camp, we 
have encountered the failures to provide army uni- 
forms and blankets and all the other exasperating 
delays which are inevitable when a nation like ours 
has foolishly trusted to broomstick preparedness. 
We shall avoid all these things for the future if we 
continue these camps, as permanent features of the 
life of all our young men, and change the selective 
draft unto a system of universal obligatory military 
training for all our young men of nineteen and 
twenty, it being understood that they are not to 
go to war until they are twenty-one. We are now 
suffering, and the whole world is now suffering, from 
the effects of our broomstick preparedness. Let us 
do away with broomstick preparedness for the future 
and substitute real preparedness. 



i6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

PILLAR-OF-SALT CITIZENSHIP 
October 12, 191 7 

When Lot's wife was journeying to safety, she could 
not resist looking back to the land she had left and 
was thereupon turned to a pillar of salt. The men 
from the Old World who, instead of adopting an 
attitude of hearty and exclusive loyalty to their 
land, try also to look backward to their old countries, 
become pillars-of-salt citizens, who are not merely 
useless, but mischievous members of our common- 
wealth. 

The dispatches of the German Government, just 
published by the State Department, give us an 
illuminating glimpse, not only of German methods 
and of German conduct towards this country, but 
also of certain phases of our own citizenship. The 
German Government proposed to use this country 
as a basis of operations for wrecking the Canadian 
railway. It also proposed to use and pay its agents 
and certain of our citizens for " sabotage In every 
kind of American factory for supplying munitions of 
war," and for " a vigorous campaign to secure a 
majority in both houses favorable to Germany." 
The German staff, in issuing these directions and in 
naming certain American citizens as tools for the 
treacherous work, insisted that the embassy should 
not be compromised and that " similar precautions 
must be taken in regard to Irish pro-German 
propaganda." 



PILLAR-OF-SALT CITIZENSHIP 17 

Good citizens who have been misled by false 
counsel must now clearly see that the campaign of 
dynamite against our industries, with the attendant 
wreckage and murder, was a deliberate act of secret 
war by the German Government; that the attempt 
by Americans to secure an embargo on sending muni- 
tions to the Allies was an effort to aid Germany in 
thus making war on the United States; that the \ 
Irish pro-German movement in this country was ] 
financed and guided from Germany, and that our 
citizens, whether of foreign or native birth, whether 
of native American or German or Irish origin, who 
took part in pushing these movements, were doing 
substantially the same kind of work that Benedict 
Arnold once tried to do. 

Some of them were doubtless paid, others were 
doubtless not paid, but the paid and the unpaid 
alike were serving Germany against the United 
States. These matters are now all of public record. 
The excuse of ignorance can no longer avail any one. 
Henceforth the citizens of German or Irish birth 
who take part in such activities as those of most of 
the German-American alliances and the like, are at 
best standing in the position of pillar-of-salt citi- 
zenship; at worst they, and above all their native 
American associates, who now indulge in pacifist 
movements or demand a peace without overwhelm- 
ing victory or ask for a referendum on the war, or 
in any other way serve the brutal and conscience- 
less ambition of Germany, stand unpleasantly near 
the lonely eminence occupied by Benedict Arnold. 



i8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR . 

BROOMSTICK APOLOGISTS 
October 14, 191 7 

The chief of the Ordnance Bureau of the army, in 
commenting on the shortage of rifles, has said that 
it is of no consequence, because " every soldier will 
be supplied a rifle when he starts for France." 

Of course he will, otherwise he cannot start. One 
of the leading papers of New York backs up the 
statement by saying that the " drilling in the camps 
w^ithout rifles is ended now " and that "General 
Crozier delayed the work so as to get rifles with the 
same ammunition our allies are using." 

Neither statement is correct. The last is the re- 
verse of truth. On October 2 in one camp there were 
still only one hundred rifles for twenty thousand 
men and other camps were scarcely better off, and 
the delay in getting rifles during the last eight 
months has been due primarily to the refusal of the 
Ordnance Department to get rifles using the am- 
munition of our allies. 

If during the two years preceding our entry into 
the war the Government factories had been run full 
speed, we would have had over two million of 
Springfield rifles instead of under one million. Our 
shortage was due solely to our policy of dawdle. Our 
factories produced a mere dribble of rifles and no big 
field guns until the inevitable happened. 

War came. Having no rifles of our own for the 
new army, the War Department decided to adopt 



BROOMSTICK APOLOGISTS 19 

the English rifle, the Enfield, which was being built 
in this country at the rate of nearly nine thousand 
a day in private plants, and by speeding them up the 
number could have been immediately increased 
to fourteen thousand a day. But the authorities 
insisted that the Enfields should be changed to take 
our ammunition, and that certain parts should be 
standardized and made interchangeable. As regards 
this excuse, it is sufficient to point out that in the 
first place it was a very grave error, while making 
the parts of our Enfields interchangeable, at the 
same time to make their ammunition not inter- 
changeable with that of the British Enfields, for the 
number of Springfields on hand was negligible com- 
pared to the millions of rifles we would ultimately 
need, and in the second place the delay even for this 
purpose was wholly inexcusable. The German sub- 
marine note came on January 31. An alert War De- 
partment would have had its rifle programme mi- 
nutely mapped out within two weeks. The delay in 
furnishing final specifications to the factories was 
such that they could not begin on the complete rifle 
until the latter part of August. Six months is a 
" perfectly endurable delay " only if we are content 
to accept the speed standards in war of Tiglath- 
Pileser and Pharaoh Necho. The United States must 
learn to adopt the war speed standards of the Twen- 
tieth Century, A.D., instead of those of the Seventh 
Century, B.C. 

If in April we had been ready to proceed with the 
Enfield rifle, we would now have about two million 



20 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

of the new rifles instead of about one-fiftieth of that 
number. General Crozier says that we have only 
had to wait " two or three months — a perfectly en- 
durable delay." Surely if there is anything this war 
teaches it is the vital importance of time. Two or 
three months' waiting in order to get a rifle which 
does not carry the ammunition of our allies repre- 
sents not merely an undesirable delay but grave 
unwisdom. 

General Crowder handled the draft to perfection 
because he appreciated that the difference between 
sending a telegram at 5 or at 4:45 might be of mo- 
mentous consequence. General Crozier has bungled 
the rifle situation because of the attitude which 
makes him regard two or three months as " a per- 
fectly endurable delay." 

For two years and a half before entering the war 
we relied upon broomstick preparedness. For the 
first eight months of the war we have followed the 
same policy as regards the vital matter of rifles for 
our troops. 

THE LIBERTY LOAN AND THE 

PRO-GERMANS 

October 16, 1917 

Mr. Victor Berger, the Socialist leader of Mil- 
waukee, is reported in the press as sneering at the 
Liberty bonds, berating the Administration for, as 
he says, appointing thirty-three wealthy capitalists 
on the National Council of Defense, and in effect 



LIBERTY LOAN AND THE PRO-GERMANS 21 

seeming to persuade his hearers that they ought, at 
this crisis of foreign war, to be hostile to those of 
their countrymen who are " capitaHsts " instead of 
the Kaiser. 

This is natural. The Socialist party machine in 
this country is run by Germans. Socialists, who 
were sincerely desirous of social betterment and who 
were sincere in this hatred of tyranny and wrong- 
doing, have left the Socialist party. Those who re- 
main in it have turned it into a mere tool of the 
brutal militaristic autocracy which now threatens 
the world. These men are completely dominated by 
the Germans, and German Socialists in America 
have shown in this crisis that they are Germans 
first, Socialists a long way second, and not Ameri- 
cans at all. In fact, they are venomously hostile 
to the country in which they dwell and claim citizen- 
ship, and are eagerly ready to sacrifice Socialism 
itself to the interests of the Germany of the Hohen- 
zollerns. They stand well to the front among the 
Shadow Huns who, within our gates, are the allies of 
the Huns without our gates. 

While in Wisconsin I was told that the German- 
American Alliance, in its efforts to persuade American 
citizens to betray their citizenship in the interests 
of Germany, had relatively as many adherents 
among the Socialists as among the two great parties. 

When the Socialists under such leadership oppose 
or sneer at the Liberty Loan, it is proof positive that 
all patriotic citizens should buy Liberty bonds up to 
the limit of their ability. The Socialists attack the 



22 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

Liberty Loan in order to hurt America and help 
Germany. The domination of " American capital- 
ism " is a mere blind to obscure the service they are 
trying to render to the capitalists and militarists of 
Germany. 

For the composition of the National Council of 
Defense, I am sorry that more labor men and farmers 
are not on it, but I wish they could be put on in addi- 
tion to, not as substitutes for, the men of means who 
are on it, for these men of means, taken as a whole, 
have at much cost to themselves rendered devoted 
and invaluable service to the Nation. Their absence 
would be a general calamity to America and a great 
aid to Germany, and all true lovers of America 
should recognize this fact. I know some of these 
men personally, and those whom I know have sacri- 
ficed time, effort, and money in order to be of help to 
the Nation at this juncture. In fact, I have never 
known more devoted public service than that they 
rendered at this crisis. 

It is unpatriotic at this time to attack good Ameri- 
cans because they have capital and are trying to 
make this capital of service in the war. Capital is 
necessary to business and industry, and in this war 
industrial efficiency is almost as necessary as military 
skill. The factories at home are almost as important 
as the armies in the field. Wise war taxation of 
capital and profits is eminently necessary, but it 
must not go to an extent that will interfere with pro- 
duction and the forward movement of business, or 
widespread calamity would result. 



A DIFFICULT QUESTION TO ANSWER 23 

We are a great Nation, engaged in a stupendous 
war. Let us use dollars as we use the loaded shells, 
and each can do its best work only under the leader- 
ship of the ablest man: the business man in one case, 
the military man in the other. By all means let the 
people be masters of the capital of the country at 
the present time. The surest way to do this is for 
the people themselves to buy the Liberty bonds 
and not leave them to Wall Street. They are the 
one absolutely safe investment, both for men of 
small means and men of large means. 



A DIFFICULT QUESTION TO ANSWER 

October 18, 191 7 

A CORRESPONDENT in Pueblo, Colorado, writes me 
as follows: 

By what logic are we "at peace" with Austria, when she 
is furnishing troops or artillery to Germany to fight and kill 
our soldiers on the western front? The same question might 
apply to Turkey. Remember, too, that we are furnishing 
money and supplies to Italy, our ally, in her struggle with 
Austria. The Western folks are looking to you to answer 
hard questions of this sort for us which we don't understand. 

Neither I nor any one else can satisfactorily an- 
swer the question. A limited liability war in which 
we fight Germany ourselves and pay money to Italy 
and Russia to enable them to fight Austria and 
Turkey, with whom we are at peace, savors of sharp 
practice and not of statesmanship. It is a good rule 



24 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR " 

either to stay out of war or to go into it, but not to 
try to do both things at once. 

Moreover, this matter squarely tests our sincerity 
when we announced that we went to war to make 
the world safe for democracy. The phrase must have 
been used In a somewhat oratorical fashion, anyhow, 
because we have ourselves within the last year or 
two made the world entirely unsafe for democracy 
in the two small and weak republics of Haiti and 
San Domingo. Therefore, the phrase must have 
meant that we Intended to make the world safe for 
well-behaved nations, great or small, to enjoy their 
liberty and govern themselves as they wished. If it 
did not mean this, the phrase was much worse than 
an empty flourish, for It was deliberately deceitful. 
If It did mean this, then we are recreant to our 
promise unless we at once go to war with Austria and 
Turkey. 

= ' Both these nations are racial conglomerates, in 
which one or two nationalities tyrannize over other 
subject nationalities. The world will not and can- 
not be safe for democracy until the Armenians, the 
Syrian Christians, and the Arabs are freed from 
Turkish tyranny, and until the Poles, Bohemians, 
and Southern Slavs, now under the Austrian yoke, 
are made into separate, independent nations, and 
until the Italians of Southwest Austria are restored 
to Italy and the Rumanians of Eastern Hungary to 
Rumania. 

Unless we propose in good faith to carry out this 
programme, we have been guilty of a rhetorical sham 



NOW HELP THE LIBERTY LOAN 25 

when we pledged ourselves to make the world safe 
for democracy. The United States must not make 
promises which it has no intention of performing. 
We are breaking this promise and incidentally are 
acting absurdly every day that we continue at 
nominal peace with Germany's fellow tyrants and 
subject allies, Austria and Turkey. 

NOW HELP THE LIBERTY LOAN 
October 20, 191 7 

The concrete services to the United States which 
every decent American not fortunate enough to be a 
soldier can now render, is to buy as many Liberty 
bonds as he can afford. 

The Treasury Department has set forth in the 
public press the facts about the campaign which the 
pro-Germans in the United States are waging 
against the Liberty Loan. The campaign is being 
waged by trying to prevent banks from handling 
the Liberty Loan, and by the publication in certain 
newspapers of articles tending to discourage people 
from investing in the bonds. Senator La FoUette's 
speeches, which are to the same effect, are also being 
circulated with a view to check popular subscrip- 
tions. Senator La FoUette, by the way, represents 
exactly the type which tries to prevent the people 
from owning the bonds and, nevertheless, will in 
the future probably rail at the purchasers of the 
bonds as having, somehow or other, obtained an 
improper and excessive profit. 



26 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

Inasmuch as the enemies of the Liberty Loan are 
of this type, all patriotic Americans should strain 
every nerve to make the sale a success. Moreover, 
this happens to be one of those rare cases where the 
performance of a patriotic duty is a first-class finan- 
cial investment. The patriot is rendering a great 
service to the Nation while he is also making a 
capital investment for himself. If the people do 
not take the bonds, they will be taken by the big 
capitalists. The people have the first call, and while 
it is desirable in the interest of everybody to make 
this a people's loan, it is more desirable from the 
standpoint of the people themselves. The invest- 
ment is absolutely safe. The men and women who 
fail to take advantage of it are not standing by the 
country and they are not standing by their own 
interests. Every man, from the day laborer to the 
bank president, should, according to his means, 
invest in the Liberty bonds. 

A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE 

TRAINING CAMPS 

October 21, 191 7 

The Playgrounds and Recreation Association of 
America has undertaken a capital work in pushing 
the War Camp Community Committee, of which 
Mr. John N. Willys, of Toledo, is chairman. The 
War Camp Committee work for Missouri, Kansas, 
Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Colorado has made 
Mr. I. R. Kirkwood chairman, and has begun an 



A SQUARE DEAL FOR TRAINING CAMPS 27 

active drive to get the three-quarter of a million 
dollars allotted to this district out of the total of 
four million to be raised in the country. 

The movement should receive the heartiest back- 
ing. It represents much more even than the very 
important work of providing amusements for the 
hundreds of thousands of enlisted men in the various 
camps, for it also has to deal with the moral and 
sanitary surroundings, not only in camps, but in 
the neighboring towns and cities. In former wars 
the number of men incapacitated by diseases con- 
tracted in the camps often surpassed the number in- 
capacitated by the sickness due to the hardships and 
exposure at the front. This was because of lax super- 
vision of the neighborhood moral and sanitary con- 
ditions, and also from failure to instruct the soldiers 
that it is a shameful and unsoldierly thing to expose 
themselves to disease due to indulgence in vice. 

The committee is working not only in the interests 
of national morality and decency. It is also working 
in the interest of military efficiency, for it will save 
scores of thousands of soldiers from being shamefully 
incapacitated before reaching the front, and the 
gain to the Nation from the economical as well as 
the moral standpoint, after the war, will be very 
great. 

The work of the committee will be carried on 
outside the camps in the adjacent communities 
acting in cooperation with churches, clubs, and or- 
ganizations of public-spirited men and women. It 
will be wholly different from the work inside the 



28 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

camps, which Is done by the Y.M.C.A., the Knights 
of Columbus, the Y.M.H.A., and similar bodies. 
In many places the local authorities already have 
done much work along the lines sketched by the 
national committee, and wherever this is the case, 
the national committee will surely aid the local 
bodies. 

All good and patriotic men and women should 
heartily back this work to keep Uncle Sam's soldiers 
clean, decent, and self-respecting; to make them 
better citizens and more formidable fighting men. 



THE PASSING OF THE CRIPPLE 
October 23, 191 7 

If men are alert, resolute, and energetic, they can 
usually secure some compensation from any ca- 
lamity. This dreadful war, attended by the killing 
and crippling of men on a scale hitherto unknown, 
has brought as a compensation a determined move 
to do away with the cripple; that is, to cease the 
mere effort to keep a crippled man alive and, instead, 
to endeavor by reconstructive surgery to restore him 
to himself and to the community as an economic 
asset. 

Surgeon-General Gorgas and his associates have 
worked out, and are ready practically to test, an or- 
ganized system under which any seemingly crippled 
man is to be kept under the guidance of the medical 
branch of the army until either the usefulness of the 



THE PASSING OF THE CRIPPLE 29 

damaged part has been restored or else until he has 
been trained in other ways so as to enable him 
measurably to overcome the handicap. In almost 
every case something will be done to make the 
cripple less of a burden to himself and others, and 
in most cases, the army medical service confidently 
believes, the cripple will once more become a useful 
and therefore a happy citizen. In all our special 
hospitals that are now being planned, the curative 
workshop is part of the plant. The effort is to be 
not only for the physical development and physical 
reeducation of the wounded part, but also for any 
intellectual training necessary to produce new forms 
of effective ability which will offset any loss in 
physical ability. The aim is not merely to save the 
life of, and then turn loose, a crippled pensioner 
who can be little but a burden on the community; 
It is to take care of the wounded man until the very 
best of which he is capable has been developed, so 
that when once more in the outside world he will 
be a real asset to the Nation. This is a fine thing for 
the Nation, and is of incalculable consequence from 
the standpoint of the self-respect and happiness of 
the man. 

This represents the complete reversal of the old 
point of view, which was that the cripple was turned 
loose with a pension for less than what if sound in 
body he would have earned, and a burden on 
the community. The purpose of Surgeon-General 
Gorgas and his associates is that the Government 
shall stand behind the ma,n and invest money in him 



30 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR " 

so as to develop all his latent resources, fitting him 
to make good as a citizen and expecting him thus to 
make good. There will be, where necessary, a money 
compensation for the injury, but the great compen- 
sation will be the return to useful life of the man 
himself. 

The far-reaching effect of such a policy is evident. 
The purpose is to insist that every man, no matter 
how maimed, shall be made of further use in the 
world. If once the army acts on this theory, the 
great industries will follow suit. The cripple, in 
the sense of being a helpless or useless cripple, will 
largely be eliminated, and out of this war will have 
come another step in the slow march of mankind 
towards a better and more just life. 



THE PEACE OF COMPLETE VICTORY 

October 23, 191 7 

It is stated in a press report from Washington that 
the Allies wish the United States to stop sending 
men abroad and use its ships for food and munitions 
instead, but that the Administration will not agree 
to the plan, and furthermore that the Administration 
is determined that there shall be no peace until Ger- 
many is completely beaten. If the report is correct, 
the Administration is absolutely right on both points. 
As to the first point, we can well understand, in 
view of the steady U-boat campaign, how greatly 
the Allies desire food and munitions, and we regret 



THE PEACE OF COMPLETE VICTORY 31 

with bitter shame the folly of our Government in 
dawdling and delaying for six vital months after the 
German note of January 31 last before seriously 
beginning the work of building big, swift cargo boats. 
But this cannot alter the fact that for the sake of 
our honor and our future world usefulness we must 
ourselves fight and not merely hire others to fight 
for us. If we do not follow this course, our children's 
heads will be bowed with humiliation. With proper 
energy we could already have had some hundreds 
of thousands of men in the firing line, and we should 
send our troops over as rapidly as possible, with the 
purpose to put at least two million men against the 
German lines next year, an entirely possible pro- 
gramme if the Government will lend its energies 
with a single mind to the task. 

As regards the second point, every decent citizen 
should make the pacifist and the home Hun realize 
that agitation for a premature peace, for a peace 
without victory, is seditious. Shame on every man, 
and above all on every public servant and every 
leader of public opinion, who endeavors to weaken 
the determination of America to see the war through 
and at all costs secure an overwhelming triumph for 
the principles for which we contend. If Germany is ^ 
left unbeaten, the Western Hemisphere will stand in ■ 
cowering dread of an assault by Germany's ruthless 
and barbarous autocracy. The liberties of the free 
peoples of the world are at stake. 

We must now fight with all our might on European 
soil beside our allies or else fear the day when we 



32 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

will have to fight without allies beside our burning 
homes. While this war lasts, the cause of our allies 
is our cause, their defeat would be our defeat, and 
whoever assails them or defends Germany is a traitor 
to the United States. There must be no negotiated 
peace. Belgium is entitled to an enormous in- 
demnity and France to annexation of Alsace and 
Lorraine. By her marine murders and her shore 
raids and her utter treachery and abominable 
cruelty, Germany has made herself the outlaw 
among nations, and With her we should negotiate 
only through the mouths of our cannon. All who 
now advocate a negotiated peace with her are seek- 
ing to betray civilization in the interest of brute force 
and international outrage. The United States owes 
her entrance into this war almost as much to the 
American pacifist as to the German militarist, and 
now the former is meanly eager once more to serve 
the latter by securing an unjust peace. Let every 
brave and patriotic American spurn the base coun- 
sels of the pro-Germans and pacifists, and insist that 
this country, at whatever cost, fight steadfastly until 
the war closes with Germany's complete overthrow. 

FIGHTING WORK FOR THE MAN OF 

FIGHTING AGE 

October 25, 191 7 

The Y.M.C.A. Is one of the most powerful agencies 
for good in our military camps here at home and with 
our armies abroad. It would be a veritable calamity 



THE MAN OF FIGHTING AGE 33 

not to have it do this work. The women and the 
elderly men who have gone abroad under present 
conditions are rendering a patriotic service of high 
value, but every young man of fighting age who has 
gone abroad for the Y.M.C.A. at this time is a posi- 
tive damage to the work and should be instantly 
sent home. It is an ignoble thing for an able-bodied 
man to be in such a position of bodily safety where 
his example must naturally excite contempt and re- 
sentment among the men who, unlike him, are risk- 
ing their lives and have left their families for the sake 
of a great ideal. Of course, no man of draft age 
should be sent over, but this is not enough. The 
draft represents merely the minimum performance 
of duty. No man of age to permit his entering the 
army abroad or at home should be sent over. If any 
such man is not in the army, it should be either be- 
cause he has been turned down by the army authori- 
ties for physical reasons or because his work at home 
either for his family or for the Government impera- 
tively demands his presence here. If he is able to go 
abroad at all, he should go abroad in the army. The 
fact that he is abroad for the Y.M.C.A. is proof 
positive that he has no business to be there. 

An officer in high command in France recently 
wrote home a letter, which I have seen, describing 
the experiences of the junior officers of his command 
with some of the young able-bodied Y.M.C.A. repre- 
sentatives. He began by an emphatic testimony to 
the admirable work the Y.M.C.A. had done and to 
its great importance, and by an emphatic statement 



34 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

that it had a thoroughly bad effect on the enlisted 
men to see a young man of their own age engaged in 
such work. He then illustrated its effect on the 
young officers with whom these Y.M.C.A. men 
messed, writing: 

Two young Y.M.C.A. men have been at two of the bat- 
talion messes. They are of the age whose presence here is an 
annoyance to the army because they seem to have been ex- 
empted from the draft. They have obtained bullet-proof jobs 
and their presence here is a bad example to all the young men 
in the army. Last night at one mess the officers were so dis- 
gusted with the Y.M.C.A., who was actually wearing a uni- 
form with an officer's belt on, that they began to chaff him, 
telling him that they were married men and were entitled to 
play safety first themselves and thought they would apply for 
jobs in the Salvation Army. The Y.M.C.A. had to stand for 
this because he was the only unmarried man there, and it is 
said that his mother persuaded him that he owed her a duty 
not to go in a dangerous place. He evidently feels his duty 
keenly. The other young fellow from the Y.M.C.A. was a 
real man and he left the soft job and has enlisted as a private. 

The Y.M.C.A. is so very useful an organization 
that it is profoundly to be regretted that it should in 
any way damage its usefulness. Its work with the 
armies abroad should be done exclusively by women 
and elderly men. No able-bodied man under forty- 
five should represent the Y.M.C.A. in the war zone 
or with the army camps. 

WISE WOMEN AND FOOLISH WOMEN 

October 27, 1917 

There are wise and foolish women just as there are 
wise and foolish men, and in any great crisis the wel- 



WISE WOMEN AND FOOLISH WOMEN 35 

fare of this country depends upon the extent to 
which the wise and patriotic men and the wise and 
patriotic women can offset or overcome the folly of 
the foolish. 

The woman who bravely and cheerfully sends her 
men to battle when the country calls takes her place 
high on the national honor roll. She stands beside 
the mothers and wives of the men of '76 and of the 
men who wore the blue and the gray in the Civil 
War. Where would this country now be if Wash- 
ington's mother had not raised her boy to be a 
soldier for the right? 

But the women who do not raise their boys to be 
soldiers when the country needs them are unfit to 
live in this republic. The women who at this time 
try to dissuade their husbands or sons who are of 
military age from entering the army or navy are 
thoroughly unworthy citizens. The kind of affection 
which shows itself by refusing to allow the boy to 
face hard work when it is his duty to do so, the 
mother who brings up her boy to be a worthless 
idler, because she is too fond of him to see him suffer 
the discomfort of hard work, and the mother who 
desires her boy to play the coward or the shirk, in 
time of war, are not merely foolish; they are poor 
citizens. They are the real enemies of their sons, for 
there can be no more dangerous enemy than the 
human being, man or woman, who teaches another 
human being to lose his soul in order to save his 
body. The wise mother is the best of all good citi- 
zens and the foolish mother stands almost at the 



36 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

other end of the scale. I wish every mother In the 
land could read Theodosia Garrison's poem, recently 
sent out by that stirring body of patriots, the Vigi- 
lantes. It describes the youth of twenty years, eager 
to play a manly part while his mother seeks to hold 
him from the post of danger and duty, and two of 
the verses run: 

Mother of his twenty years, who holds against his will 
The eager heart, the quick blood, and bids them to be still. 
What of the young untrammeled soul you seek to blunt and 
kill? 

You would save the body stainless and complete, 

Fetters on the hands of it, shackles on the feet; 

And in the crippling of them make soul and body meet. 



WHY CRY OVER SPILT MILK? 

October 28, 191 7 

Nice, short-sighted persons, when the evil effects of 
our folly in failing to prepare are pointed out, some- 
times ask, " Why cry over spilt milk? " The answer 
is that we wish to be sure that we do not spill it 
again, and, unfortunately, the nice persons who bleat 
against any one who points out our shortcomings in 
preparedness or who excuse and champion those 
responsible for this unpreparedness, are doing all 
they can to invite future disaster for the Nation. 

The bleat assumes different expressions in differ- 
ent localities. Recently the Mayor of Abilene, 
Texas, expressed his disapproval of my pointing out 
that we, as a Nation, had wholly failed to prepare, 



WHY CRY OVER SPILT MILK? 37 

by saying that I was " a seditious conspirator who 
ought to be shot dead," and that the editor of the 
newspaper pubHshing the article " should be tarred 
and feathered." Although differing in method of ex- 
pression, this slightly homicidal bleat of the gentle- 
souled (and doubtless entirely harmless) Mayor of 
Abilene, Texas, is exactly similar in thought to the 
utterances of all these sheeplike creatures who raise 
quavering or incoherent protests against every 
honest and patriotic man who points out the damage 
done by our failure to prepare. 

These persons cannot deny one fact I state. Nine 
months have passed since, on January 31, Germany 
sent us a note which was practically a declaration of 
war. We have only just put troops in the trenches; 
many of the troops of our draft army training at 
home have until recently only had broomsticks, and 
now only have one old Spanish War rifle for every 
eight soldiers; most of the artillery regiments in 
these camps either have no guns or wooden guns. 
After nine months we are still wholly unable to de- 
fend ourselves or to render efficient military aid to 
our allies, and we owe safety from invasion only to 
the protection of the fleets and armies of the war- 
worn and weary nations to whose help we nominally 
came. No man can truthfully deny these statements, 
no man can seriously regard this situation as satis- 
factory. To try to cover up the truth by bluster and 
brag and downright falsehoods may possibly deceive 
ourselves, but will deceive no one else, whether 
friend or foe. Is such foolish deceit worth while ? 



38 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. We 
were not wise in time. Let us learn from our past 
folly future wisdom. Our first duty is to win this 
war, and therefore the Shadow Hun within our gates 
is our worst internal foe. Our next and equally im- 
portant duty is to prepare against disaster in the 
future, and therefore our next worst internal foe is 
the sheeplike creature who invites national disaster 
for the future by bleating against the telling of the 
truth in the present. 



SAVE THE FOODSTUFF 
October 30, 191 7 

Mr. Hoover has been appointed as the man to lead 
us of this Nation in the vitally important matter of 
producing and saving as much food as we possibly 
can in order that we can send abroad the largest 
possible amount for the use of our suffering allies 
and for the use of our own gallant soldiers. Mr. 
Hoover's preeminent services in Belgium pointed 
him out as of all the men in this country the man 
most fit for the very position to which he has been 
appointed. Let us give him our most hearty and 
loyal support. 

In this great and terrible war the slaughter, star- 
vation, and exhaustion are on a scale never before 
known. They are nation-wide. Therefore every in- 
dividual of every nation engaged must do his full 
part or else must be held to have failed in his duty. 



SAVE THE FOODSTUFF 39 

The man of fighting age must fight. The man with 
especial business capacity or mechanical skill must 
produce arms or equipment or ammunition. And 
every man, woman, or child must help produce food 
if possible, and in any event must help economize it. 

Mr. Hoover has asked us during this week to de- 
vote ourselves to getting all our people voluntarily 
to pledge themselves to certain forms of food econ- 
omy, — which are of great consequence from the 
standpoint of sending abroad the foodstuffs needed 
by our Allies and by our own troops. There are cer- 
tain foods which are easily transported which are 
nourishing and which are peculiarly suited for the 
use both of our allies and of our troops in the field. 
Mr. Hoover's plan is that we shall all of us volun- 
tarily limit along strict lines our consumption of 
these food products and replace them by other foods 
which are not suitable for sending abroad, and that 
we shall rigidly avoid waste. Full particulars are 
given in the pamphlets sent out by Mr. Hoover 
from his Washington Bureau of Food Conservation. 

What Mr. Hoover asks entails not the slightest 
real hardship on any of us. It merely requires each 
of us to exercise a little self-control and perhaps to 
make some trivial sacrifice of personal preference 
in what we eat. Surely this is a very, very small 
service to be rendered by us stay-at-homes in sup- 
port of our sons and brothers who have gone or are 
going to risk their lives in battle for us and mankind. 



40 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

ON THE FIRING LINE 
October 31, 191 7 

Our men are now actually on the firing line, and 
while, of course, they are as yet there primarily for 
purposes of instruction, nevertheless, they are there. 
They are at times under fire. They are at any mo- 
ment liable to death in upholding the honor of their 
country, of your country, my reader, and of mine. 

General Pershing's original division under his 
direction and the direction of his lieutenants, such 
as Major-General Sibert, Brigadier-General Duncan, 
and their associates, has evidently been trained to a 
high point of efiiciency. The accounts show that the 
infantry effected their entrance to the trenches with 
the precision of veterans. Evidently the artillery 
is being handled with similar efficiency. Apparently, 
from the account, our artillerymen are using French 
guns. 

All Americans must feel a glow of pride as he reads 
of the soldierly manner in which our American 
troops have made their entry into the fire zone. 
But we must not confine ourselves merely to feeling 
pride in our fellow countrymen who are at the front 
risking their lives in doing their duty on behalf of 
all of us. We must back them up. We must support 
the Government in every movement taken effi- 
ciently to put the strength of this Nation behind our 
soldiers, and we must vigilantly insist upon the effi- 
ciency including the speed absolutely indispensable. 



ON THE FIRING LINE 41 

We must support the Liberty Loans, conserve food, 
cheerfully pay taxes, and tolerate neither improper 
profit-making out of the war by capitalists or 
strikers, — nor slackness and malingering which in- 
terferes with our military efficiency by laboring men. 
Every American civilian should now do his work 
with the same sense of duty as is shown by the 
soldiers in the field. 

And now let good patriots keep in mind that the 
Huns within our gates from this time on are the 
allies of the Huns who are actually doing battle 
against our soldiers at the front. The men who 
directly or indirectly advise people not to take Lib- 
erty bonds, the men who clamor for an early peace, 
an inconclusive or negotiated peace, the men who 
condone the offenses of Germany directly or in- 
directly, the men who say we have not ample cause 
for war against Germany, the men who attack our 
allies or seek to breed dissension between them and 
us, are each and every one to a greater or less degree 
acting as friends of Germany and therefore as 
enemies of the United States. Every patriotic 
American should now clearly understand what is 
really implied in the attitude taken during the last 
nine months by the Stones and La Follettes, the 
Hearsts and Hillquits. These men are out of place 
in America. It is sincerely to be regretted that they 
cannot be put where they belong — under the 
Hohenzollerns. 



42 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

NINE TENTHS OF WISDOM IS BEING 

WISE IN TIME 

November i, 191 7 

A FEW days ago I expressed in The Star the regret 
and uneasiness felt by all men with knowledge of 
international matters at the failure of this country to 
declare war on Austria and Turkey. Various Ad- 
ministration, and, of course, the leading pro-Ger- 
man, newspapers took exception to this statement 
and announced that the procedure advocated would 
be unwise or improper. Since then the great defeat 
of the Italian army by the Germans and Austrians 
has occurred, and among the Italians there has been 
much bitter criticism of our failure to help them, al- 
though we have now for many months been at war, 
at least in theory, with Germany. 

A leading Administration newspaper of high 
standing, the Brooklyn Eagle, accurately states the 
case as follows: 

Italy's defeat is shocking and alarming. Only its unexpect- 
edness excuses the failure of Italy's allies, including ourselves, 
to meet it. This Government cannot evade responsibility if 
Italy is lost, for we have been up to the present, quite as 
indifferent as the rest of the Entente to Italy's fate. Italy 
suffers and is endangered by our own negative attitude. We 
have loaned her money, but we are not at war with Austria, 
and we have failed to give Italy such whole-hearted support 
as her critical position demands. No time should be lost in 
reversing this policy. Italy is fighting our battles as well as 
her own. She is a valuable ally; her cause is just. No effort 
should be spared to save her. There is no time to compromise 
or equivocate. Our own soldiers in Europe will have to pay 



WE ARE IN THIS WAR TO THE FINISH 43 

in blood for every hour's delay in throwing all possible help 
to Italy. 

This is the exact truth. I call attention to the 
fact that it is from a strong supporter of the Admin- 
istration and that it takes the view I have for months 
been taking, and which various well-meaning but 
sheeplike creatures have bleated against on the 
ground that it implies criticism of the Administra- 
tion. I was merely advocating before the event the 
course, which, after the event, all will agree ought 
to have been followed. It is in this matter precisely 
as it was in regard to our building ships to meet the 
terrible U-boat menace. We should, with the utmost 
energy and speed, have begun to build them within 
a week, within a day, of the German note of January 
31. Instead of this we dawdled and wrangled for 
six months before seriously beginning. In the one 
case as in the other foolish creatures did immense 
harm by protesting against pointing out our blunders 
on the ground that we must not speak of spilt milk, 
whereas, of course, we can only stop future spilling 
by showing where it has been spilt in the past. 

Nine tenths of wisdom is being wise in time, is the 
lesson as taught afresh by the Italian disaster and the 
shortage of cargo ships. Let us at last profit by it. 

WE ARE IN THIS WAR TO THE FINISH 
November 2, 1917 

The disaster to our Italian ally should make every 
American worth calling such awake to the real needs 



44 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

of the hour and should arouse in him the inflexible 
purpose to see that this war is fought through to a 
victorious conclusion, no matter how long it takes, 
no matter what the expense and loss may be. 

Our first troops are now actually in the trenches; 
American infantry and American artillerymen are 
under fire; blood has been shed. Our sons and 
brothers have begun the trench life of wearing 
fatigue, of cold, of inconceivable hardship and ex- 
posure and of cruel danger. A few women at home 
suffer as much. Otherwise, no civilians outside the 
regions conquered by the Germans can begin to real- 
ize the terrible strain to which constantly increasing 
numbers of our soldiers will be exposed as additional 
divisions are trained for and put into the actual 
fighting. 

We who stay at home must back up those men in 
every way. We must stand by and energetically 
support every effort of the Government to add to 
their efficiency and to back them up, including the 
sending over of constantly increasing numbers of 
soldiers to the aid of the men already there. We 
must back up the loans and taxes necessary in order 
to supply them with arms, munitions, equipment, 
food, hospitals. We must hold to the strictest ac- 
countability before the bar of public opinion any 
Government official responsible for needless delay, 
or for shortage In shipping, clothing, or material, or 
for deficient ammunition, or faulty gas-masks, or for 
any other shortage which exposes our men at the 
front to needless danger and hardship. We must 



SINISTER ALLIES 45 

make their effort and their suffering avail by highly 
resolving that the whole power of this Nation, and 
all its resources in men and in wealth, shall be used 
to bring the peace of complete and overwhelming 
triumph over Germany and over Germany's subject 
allies, Austria and Turkey. 

Finally, every brave and patriotic American owes 
it to the men at the front to make the lash of scorn 
felt by the Hearsts and La Follettes and by all others 
like them. These men have given or now give aid 
and comfort to Germany, and therefore show them- 
selves enemies to the soldiers in the American uni- 
form by opposing the war, or by asking for an in- 
conclusive peace, or by assailing the allies of the 
United States, or by condoning or keeping silent 
concerning the hideous atrocities which have made 
the Prussianized empire of the Hohenzollerns the 
arch enemy of every liberty-loving and self-respect- 
ing civilized nation on the face of the globe. 



SINISTER ALLIES 

November 3, 191 7 

There are well-meaning, but not overwise, persons 
who bleat against any sincere and truthful effort to 
make us more efficient in this war by protesting 
against grave shortcomings. These worthy persons 
should realize that they are acting against the in- 
terest of the United States and in the interest of 
Germany. If they doubt this, they have only to 



46 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

ponder the fact that in their attitude they stand 
beside such sinister alHes as German papers like 
the New York Staats Zeitung and Illinois Staats 
Zeitung and the various papers of Mr. Hearst. 

These papers have opposed our going to war, or 
have assailed our allies, or have condoned or passed 
over in silence the brutal infamy of Germany. They 
have opposed the Government in its actions against 
Germany. In so doing they have been the enemies of 
America. And they have been no less the enemies of 
America when they have eagerly defended the Gov- 
ernment from criticism for shortcomings which im- 
pair our efficiency and therefore tell in favor of 
Germany. Exactly as they once opposed prepared- 
ness, or excused the murderous sinking of the Lusi- 
tania, or protested against our going to war, so they 
now zealously exhibit a sham loyalty of the most 
hurtful kind by denouncing honest and truthful men 
because they tell the truth. 

In order really to serve this country, it is nec- 
essary to point out the dreadful damage done by our 
failure to prepare ; of the evil effect of trying to train 
our troops with broomsticks and wooden guns; the 
worse than folly of failing to declare war on Austria 
and Turkey, and the harm done by the delays, in- 
cluding the dawdling for six months before we began 
the vitally necessary work of shipbuilding. To 
cover up such shortcomings deceives no one but 
ourselves. Germany knows all about them. We help 
her to find out by our failure to treat her spies with 
drastic severity. And the men who suffer know all 



THE NEW YORK MAYORALTY ELECTION 47 

about them; the artillerymen with only a wooden 
cannon, or the sentry in a cotton uniform on a cold 
night stands in no need of enlightenment on the 
subject. When these pro-German papers with loud 
professions of loyalty protest against telling our 
people the truth about such matters, they are merely 
serving Germany against the United States. 

Loyalty to the Nation demands that we subscribe 
to the Liberty Loans; that we practice food con- 
servation; that we ardently support sending our 
soldiers abroad until we have millions of men on the 
firing line; that we stand for universal obligatory 
military training and service; that we heartily up- 
hold our allies and condemn as traitors to America 
all who attack them; that we insist on prosecuting 
the war to complete victory and condemn as false to 
this country all who seek an inconclusive peace. 
Loyalty to the Nation no less demands that we make 
our people understand the lasting harm done by our 
failure to prepare during the two and a half years 
before the war broke out and the grave damage now 
caused by needless delay, by irresolution, by the ap- 
pointment or retention of inefficient men, and by any 
and all types of half-hearted ness in waging the war. 

THE NEW YORK MAYORALTY ELECTION 
November 8, 1917 

The triumph of Tammany in New York City and 
the large Socialist vote have in some quarters been 
hailed as showing that New York City is for peace 



48 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

at any price and that it is against the Adminis- 
tration. Neither statement is warranted by the 
facts. 

The Socialist vote was about one-fifth of the total 
vote. It included most of those who wished the war 
stopped at once, this number being made up of pro- 
fessional pacifists, of red flag Anarchists, and of poor, 
ignorant people who pathetically believed that a 
Socialist mayor would somehow bring peace at once. 
But it also included its professional Socialists and 
poor, ignorant people who did not think of the war, 
but who pathetically believed that a Socialist mayor 
would somehow give them five-cent milk. The 
voters in New York City who wish immediate peace 
without any regard to national honor, or to what 
future horrors such a peace would bring, are cer- 
tainly less than a fifth of the whole. 
■ The vote was not anti-Administration. A far 
larger proportion of the supporters of the Adminis- 
tration voted for Mr. Hylan than for Mr. Mitchel, 
and officially the Administration was neutral be- 
tween the two. A goodly number of pro-Germans 
supported Mr. Hylan, but he was also supported by 
a large number of entirely loyal men, and he him- 
self, unlike the Socialist candidate, Mr. Hillquit, was 
avowedly for America against Germany, and for the 
prosecution of the war. The election in actual fact 
turned directly on local issues. New York occasion- 
ally witnesses an occasional insurrection of virtue, 
but the city has never in fifty years given a good 
administration .a second term. The insurrection of 



GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 49 

virtue at one election is followed by a Tammany 
revival at the next. 

The result of the election in New York City was 
not heartening to patriotic persons, but right next 
door, in the Connecticut congressional district which 
includes Bridgeport, a contest for a vacant con- 
gressional seat resulted in a way that speaks well for 
the Republic. The Republican candidate, Schuyler 
Merritt, a man of high probity and capacity, with 
a forward look in international affairs, came out in 
bold and straightforward fashion, saying he would 
support the President in all measures for the effi- 
cient prosecution of the war until victory came, that 
he would do all he could to prevent our again falling 
into the condition of shameful unpreparedness we 
had for three years occupied, and that he was for 
universal obligatory military training for our young 
men. He won by a majority much greater than that 
which his precedessor received at the time of the 
presidential election last year. 



GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 

November 13, 191 7 

There have recently been published various books 
by Americans who, during the Great War, have 
officially represented this country in Germany and 
in Belgium, when the Germans conquered it. Am- 
bassador Gerard is one writer. Mr. Gibson, secre- 
tary of our legation at Brussels, is another. Mr. 



50 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

Curtis Roth, until recently vice-consul at Plauen, 
Saxony, is a third. Their testimony is of profound 
significance because of their official position and 
personal standing. 

Two facts leap to the eye from their writings. 
The first is that the German people have stood 
practically united behind their Government in up- 
holding and insisting upon the systematic infliction 
of hideous brutality upon their foes. With deliberate 
purpose the German Government has carried on a 
war of horror, a war of obscene cruelty, of wholesale 
slaughter, of foul treachery and bestiality, a war in 
which civilians, including women, children, nurses, 
doctors, and priests, as well as wounded soldiers, 
have been murdered wholesale. The German people 
have enthusiastically supported and approved their 
acts. Our war is as much with the German people as 
with their Government, and we should regard with 
loathing all Americans, whether men or women, who 
any way attempt to justify or defend Germany's 
action. The Americans who so act are traitors to 
their country and to humanity at large. 

The second fact is the extreme malevolence of 
hatred with which Germany regards America, a 
hatred which blossomed into full growth before we 
went to war, and which was immensely aggravated 
because of the contempt inspired by our tame sub- 
mission to outrage for over two years. Mr. Roth's 
testimony is peculiarly interesting. He shows that 
the Berlin Government actively stimulated the cam- 
paign of hatred and revenge against America, that 



GERMAN HATRED OF AMERICA 51 

the German people eagerly accepted the view that 
Americans were cowardly, avaricious, and effemi- 
nate, and that in Germany it was constantly an- 
nounced that, sooner or later, there would be a day of 
reckoning when America would have to pay a huge 
indemnity or suffer the fate of Belgium. 

Mr. Roth shows that the German people think 
exactly as their leaders think. They now hate and 
despise us Americans as they hate others of their 
foes. Says Mr. Roth: 

They are resolved to make our country drink to the dregs 
out of the bitter cup of humiliation. Nothing do they find 
more despicable than our talk about peace, which they at- 
tribute to cowardice and flabbiness. They look on the Amer- 
ican pacifist as a weakling, as a God-given tool in the hands 
of German interest. . . . The Germans, if possible, feel more 
bitterly towards Americans of German extraction than to- 
wards Americans of other lines of descent. 

Germany has definitely decided on America's ruin. 
She has definitely decided that there must be 
an intense anti-American spirit in both Govern- 
ment and people. She may bide her time, and she 
will doubtless try to separate us from our allies, 
but her purpose towards us is both relentless and 
ruthless. 

If we are true to ourselves, if we prepare our armed 
strength and keep it prepared, if we show farsighted- 
ness and valor of soul, we can be sternly indifferent 
to this foul and evil hatred. But we must keep 
steadily in mind that Germany respects nothing 
whatever except courage and prepared strength 
and that the pacifists and pro-Germans, the Huns 



52 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

within our gates, the Hearsts and the La Follettes, 
are playing the game of our German foes, and if 
they have their way will bring shame and disaster 
to our land. 



START THE SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL 
MILITARY TRAINING AT ONCE 

November 17, 191 7 

Lieutenant-General S. B. M. Young, U.S.A., 
retired, gave long, faithful, and efficient service to 
this country, from the beginning of the Civil War, for 
nearly half a century. But he never has rendered 
greater service than by his steady insistence upon 
the immediate introduction by law in this country 
of the system of obligatory universal military train- 
ing as our permanent policy. This should be done 
at once; and all the young men from nineteen to 
twenty-one should be called out as soon as there are 
means of training them. They need not fight until 
they are twenty-one. But they are least needed as 
economic assets; they are most needed as military 
assets; and it is cruelty to them not to train them in 
advance. 

The selective draft was far better than nothing. 
But let us never forget that it represented doing im- 
perfectly after the event that which ought to have 
been done thoroughly long before the event. We 
have been at war three quarters of a year, and the 
drafted men, admirable material though they are, 



I 



THE SYSTEM OF UNIVERSAL TRAINING 53 

are only just beginning to be trained and as yet are 
not even armed and properly clothed. We are trying 
to train our soldiers to perform the duties of soldiers 
after the war has begun; and we can attempt the 
experiment at all only because the English and 
French protect us from our enemies while we make 
it. Hereafter let us train the man to perform the 
tasks of a soldier before he is called to be a soldier in 
war. Only thus can we be just both to him and to 
the country. 

The present economic disturbance in the Nation 
was inevitable, in view of our failure at the outset 
of the Great War to introduce the system of univer- 
sal, obligatory military training; and this failure Is 
also responsible for the fact that our national army, 
nine months after our entry Into the war, has only 
begun training, instead of being already trained. 
Let us now at least provide for the future. The 
amendment to the law above outlined, as advocated 
by the National Association for Universal Military 
Training, of which General Young is president, 
would add nearly two million men to our army, 
would cause the minimum of interference wuth our 
economic life, and would not necessitate any addi- 
tional expense for training quarters. 

The men thus trained will be immensely benefited 
from the standpoint of their success In civil life; for 
universal training would be of Immense economic 
benefit to the Nation. As Cardinal Gibbons has 
well said, *' The legislation proposed will benefit 
youths from nineteen to twenty-one years, morally 



54 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

as well as physically, and help to prepare them for 
their work in peace as well as for the sterner needs 
of war." 

This is the only democratic system. General 
Young himself rose from being an enlisted man in 
the ranks to being the lieutenant-general of the army 
of the United States. Under universal training let 
all candidates for West Point and all other candi- 
dates for commissions be chosen with absolute fair- 
ness from among the men who have served a year in 
the field with the colors. And in the navy let all 
candidates for Annapolis be chosen from enlisted 
men of the navy who have served at least a year as 
such and who are still serving. 



A FIFTY-FIFTY WAR ATTITUDE 

November 20, 1917 

The attitude of the United States at this moment 
toward Germany's three vassal allies, Austria, 
Turkey, and Bulgaria, is a fifty-fifty attitude be- 
tween peace and war. It is not honest war, neither 
is it honest neutrality. It is the attitude of the back- 
woodsman, who, seeking a black animal in his pasture 
at dusk and not knowing whether it was a bear 
or a calf, fired so as to hit it if it was a bear and 
miss it if it was a calf. Such marksmanship is never 
happy. 

Bulgaria is now simply the tool of Germany and 
Turkey. I was formerly a stanch champion of 



A FIFTY-FIFTY WAR ATTITUDE 55 

Bulgaria, and would be again if she returned to her 
senses. But she now serves the devil, and shame be 
upon us if we do not treat her accordingly. No one 
can doubt that the Bulgarian Legation is an agency 
for German spies in this country. The Administra- 
tion has published reports showing that for over a 
year, previous to our entry into the war, the German 
Embassy was the center of the spies and dynamiters 
with whom Germany was already waging war 
against us. These papers show that Germany's 
allies are her mere tools and that Germany is with- 
held by no scruple from the commission of every 
conceivable treacherous intrigue and brutal outrage 
against us. Under these conditions it is a grave 
offense against our allies not to declare war on all of 
Germany's allies. 

Turkey has been and is the tool of Germany, but 
Germany has permitted her on her own account to 
perpetrate massacres on the Armenian and Syrian 
Christians which renders it little short of an infamy 
now to remain at peace with her. It is hypocritical 
to express sympathy with the Armenians and ap- 
point messages to be read in the churches about 
them and yet refuse to do the only thing that will 
permanently help them which is to declare war on 
Turkey. 

With Austria our present relations are less defin- 
able than our relations with any other power. No 
one can truthfully say exactly whether our attitude 
is one of peace or war. We have not declared war on 
Austria and yet we are furnishing money, coal, and 



56 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

munitions to Italy in order to enable her to fight 
Austria. If we really are at peace with Austria, we 
are flagrantly violating our duty as a neutral and 
we ought to be condemned in any international 
court. But if we are really at war, then we are 
committing the cardinal crime of hitting soft. If 
we had gone to war with Austria when we broke 
with Germany and had acted with proper energy, 
the disaster to Cadorna would probably not have 
occurred. 

We are now taking part in the general council of 
our allies. The only way in which to make our part 
in the war thoroughly effective and our leadership 
felt to the utmost is whole-heartedly to throw our- 
self into the war on the side of all our allies and 
against all their and our enemies. 



THE GERMANIZED SOCIALISTS AND 

PEACE 

November 26, 191 7 

The American Socialist party at the present time 
is a thoroughly Germanized annex of the Prussian- 
ized militaristic and capitalistic autocracy of the 
Hohenzollerns. Honest social reformers have left it. 
No patriotic American ought longer to stay in it. 
It is purely an aid to the capitalist and militarist 
Hohenzollern party of Germany. It is a bitter 
enemy of the United States and a traitor to the 
cause of liberty throughout the world. Its leaders 



GERMANIZED SOCIALISTS AND PEACE 57 

are the supporters of an alien autocracy and are 
seeking to secure a peace which would immensely 
benefit this Prussian autocracy. They stand beside 
the Bolsheviki, whose antics have made Russia at 
this moment a by-word, both of derision and hope to 
every believer in despotism and every opponent of 
liberty throughout the world. 

Any man who feels that there is the slightest 
exaggeration in the above statements would do well 
to read the articles in which the New York Tribune 
has recently set forth the connection of Mr. William 
Bayard Hale with the pro-German propaganda in 
this country, with the Hearst papers and with the 
Socialist campaign in New York on behalf of Mr. 
Hillquit and a peace satisfactory to Germany. 
These articles should be published in permanent 
form and circulated as a tract among all decent 
Americans who still believe that the Germanized 
Socialist party in America to-day is anything except 
the foe of America, the foe of democratic liberty 
throughout the world, and the tool and ally of the 
autocrats, the capitalists, and the brutal and un- 
scrupulous military chiefs of the Prussianized Ger- 
many of the Hohenzollerns. 

Exactly as the reactionary is in the end the worst 
foe of order; exactly as the conscienceless and 
greedy man of wealth is in the end the worst foe of 
property and of honest and duty-performing holders 
of property, so the Anarchist and the wild Socialist, 
whose doctrines when applied necessarily lead to 
Anarchy and the I.W.W., and the crack-brained 



58 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

professional pacifists inevitably themselves are the 
worst enemies of freedom, of true democracy, and 
of righteousness. It is natural that in this terrible 
and melancholy world crisis these men should have 
struck hands with the sordid tools of German in- 
trigue in this country. The masters of Germany find 
all these men, whatever their nominal differences, 
united in the evil bond of a common subserviency to 
German purposes. The German rulers, who at home 
trample on the Socialists and dragoon the labor 
organizations and bully the leader of democratic 
thought, cynically profit by aiding in other countries 
the men who in the name of social reform seek to 
overthrow orderly liberty and thereby show them- 
selves the sinister allies of tyranny and despotism. 



MOBILIZE OUR MAN POWER 

December i, 191 7 

It has been announced from Washington that, in 
view of the shortage of labor on the farms, there will 
be an effort in Congress to permit the importation 
for temporary use on the farms of Chinese coolies. 
I do not believe the effort will be successful, and if it 
were successful it would be one of the greatest 
calamities that could befall the American people. 

Never under any condition should this Nation 
look at an immigrant as primarily a labor unit. He 
should always be looked at primarily as a future 
citizen and the father of other citizens who are to 



I 



MOBILIZE OUR MAN POWER 59 

live in this land as fellows with our children and our 
children's children. Our immigration laws, per- 
manent or temporary, should always be constructed 
with this fact in view. No temporary advantages 
from the importation of Chinese coolies would offset 
the far-reaching ultimate damage it would cause. 

Neither ought we to approve the plan, sometimes 
set forth by zealous and high-minded men, to get 
the Government to open up vast tracts of land and 
farm it with wage labor. This is a proposal to sub- 
stitute a wage-earning agricultural proletariat for a 
farming population which owns the land it tills. It 
is a move in exactly the wrong direction. We ought 
by law to do everything possible to put a stop to the 
growth of an absentee landlord class and of huge 
estates worked by tenant farmers. Methods identi- 
cal with or similar to those advocated by me, in my 
recent book, " The Foes of Our Own Household," 
point the way to the proper permanent solution of 
the question. 

As a war measure, rather than adopt either of the 
proposals above enumerated, let us deal boldly with 
the situation created by the existence of such vast 
numbers of men in good physical condition, who are 
not being utilized. The best war asset and labor 
asset in this country is the mass of young men from 
eighteen to twenty-one. This draft law explicitly 
and unjustifiably excepts this class, although in the 
Civil W^ar most of the soldiers entered the army 
when they were under twenty-one. Let us proclaim 
as our policy that while this war lasts no man shall 



6o ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

be excused from doing the full duty which the Nation 
finds it necessary to demand from him. Make all 
the young men from eighteen to twenty-one im- 
mediately liable to service, permit no exceptions for 
any men, no matter how wealthy, who are not al- 
ready in the army. Use as many of the men thus 
taken as are necessary to fill the camps when the 
present drafted men of the national army leave 
them. Use all the others, and use these men, too, 
until the camps are ready for them, as labor which 
the Nation shall mobilize for farm work or any other 
work which it is imperative to do, and mobilize all 
the alien labor now in the country in similar fashion. 



THE LANSDOWNE LETTER 
December 2, 191 7 

Lord Lansdowne's proposal is for a peace of defeat 
for the Allies and of victory for Germany. Such a 
peace would leave oppressed peoples under the yoke 
of Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Such a peace 
would leave the liberty-loving nations of mankind 
at the ultimate mercy of the triumphant militarism 
and capitalism of the German autocracy. 

It merely makes such a peace worse to try to hide 
the shame of the defeat behind the empty pretense 
of forging a league of nations, including German}^ to 
secure future peace. Such a peace would mean that 
Germany saw her unspeakable brutality and treach- 
ery crowned by essential triumph and therefore 



i 



THE LANSDOWNE LETTER 6i 

would put a premium upon her repeating the bru- 
taHty and treachery at the earliest convenient mo- 
ment. It is mere hypocrisy to promise to put a stop 
to wrongdoing in the future unless we are willing to 
undergo the labor and peril necessary to stop wrong- 
doing in the present. In our own country nothing 
but harm was done by the worthy persons who, a 
couple of years ago, formed a league to enforce peace 
in the future, while at the same time they nervously 
declared that they would have nothing to do with 
enforcing peace by stopping international wrong in 
the present. Lord Lansdowne's proposal to hide the 
admission of present defeat behind the camouflage 
of pretended international peace agreements for the 
future is unworthy of his distinguished services and 
reputation. 

Our people ought never to forget that Germany 
respects nothing but strength and the readiness and 
ability to use it. Germany has made a fetish of able 
brutality. She regards with utter derision the paci- 
fists and pro-Germans in this country. She will use 
them as her tools and pay them when necessary, but 
if through this aid she was able to conquer this 
country after previously separating us from our 
allies, she would with utter indifference break these 
tools and throw them on the scrap-heap with the 
rest of the American people. 

There is but one safe course to follow, and that is 
to fight this war through to victory at no matter 
what cost. This Nation should declare war on 
Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, this week. Let us 



62 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

definitely announce that our aims include restoring 
and indemnifying Belgium, giving back Alsace and 
Lorraine to France, creating a Poland which shall 
include all the Poles and a greater Bohemia and a 
great Jugo-Slav commonwealth and restoring Ru- 
manian Hungary to Rumania, and Italian Austria 
to Italy, and driving the Turk from Europe and 
freeing Armenia and Syria and Arabia. After 
victory let us join in any arrangement to increase 
the likelihood of future international peace, but let 
us treat this as an addition to, and never as a sub- 
stitute for, the preparedness which is the only sure 
guarantee against either war or measureless disaster. 
Therefore let us at once introduce as our permanent 
national policy the system of universal obligatory 
military training of all our young men. 

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE 
December 5. 1917 

The President has in admirable language set forth 
the firm resolve of the American people that the war 
shall be fought through to the end until it is crowned 
by the peace of complete victory. He states un- 
equivocally that our task is to win the war, that 
nothing shall turn us aside from it until it is ac- 
complished, and that every power and resource we 
possess will be used to achieve this purpose. He 
states that there shall be no peace until the war is 
won. He says that this peace must deliver, not only 
Belgium and Northern France, but the peoples of 



^ THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE 63 

Austria-Hungary, of the Balkan Peninsula, and of 
Turkey in Europe and Asia from *' the impudent 
and alien dominion of the Prussian military and 
commercial autocracy." He emphatically states 
that we have no purpose to wrong the German 
people or subject them to oppression, but merely to 
prevent others from being oppressed by them. He 
states that if Germany persists in adherence to her 
present rulers and their policies, it will be impossible, 
even after the war, to treat her as other nations are 
treated, but that, although we intend to right the 
wrongs inflicted by Germany on other nations, we 
have no intention to inflict similar wrongs on Ger- 
many in return. He says that the mind of the 
Russian people has been poisoned by the rulers of 
Germany, exactly as the latter have poisoned the 
minds of their own people. 

To all of this the heart of the American people 
will answer a devout amen. The message is a 
solemn pledge on behalf of this Nation that we shall 
use every energy we possess to win the war, and that 
we shall accept no peace not based on the complete 
overthrow of Germany. The American people must 
now devote themselves with grim resolution and 
whole-hearted purpose to the effective translation 
of this pledge into action, for, of course, the sole value 
of such a promise lies in the manner in which it is 
actually made good. The people must back the 
Government in every step to carry into effect this 
pledge and must tolerate no failure in any official 
charged with the duty of carrying it into effect. 



64 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

I shall shortly discuss the proposals of the Presi- 
dent in reference to Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. 
But in this editorial I wish merely, as one among the 
countless Americans to whom the honor and welfare 
and high ideals of America are dear, to say amen to 
the President's expressed purpose to wage this war 
through to the end with all our strength and to 
accept no peace save that of complete victory. 



FOUR BITES OF A CHERRY 
December 7, 191 7 

In his recent message to Congress President Wilson 
stated that in order " to push our great war of 
freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion we 
must clear away with a thorough hand all impedi- 
ments to success," and added, " The very embarrass- 
ing obstacle that stands in our way is that we are at 
war with Germany, but not with her allies." He 
recommended that we declare war on Austria, and 
added, " The same logic would lead also to a declara- 
tion of war against Turkey and Bulgaria." But 
inferentially and for reasons not apparent he advised 
against such action. 

The President is entirely right in stating that our 
failure hitherto to declare war on the allies of Ger- 
many has been a very embarrassing obstacle to our 
success, and he is entirely right in advising a dec- 
laration of war against Austria. Incidentally I 
wish to point out that this is precisely what I insisted 



FOUR BITES OF A CHERRY 65 

upon in these columns two months ago, and what I 
had elsewhere advocated six months ago, and it is 
worth while remembering that the Administration 
papers then assailed me for urging the course which, 
although there has not been the slightest change in 
the situation, the President now urges. 

There was no justification whatever for failure to 
declare war on Austria when we declared war on 
Germany, and there is now no justification for failure 
to declare war on Bulgaria and Turkey when we 
declare war on Austria. There is no use in making 
four bites of a cherry. There is no use in going to war 
a little, but not much. The President has sent a 
message pledging support to Rumania, but it is 
worse than an empty form to send such a message 
unless we forthwith declare war on Bulgaria. The 
President has appointed a Sunday for the special 
expression of sympathy with Armenia, but such 
expression of sympathy is utterly meaningless unless 
we go to war with Turkey. The Austro-Hungarian 
and Turkish empires must be broken up if we intend 
to make the world even moderately safe for democ- 
racy. There must be a revived Poland, taking in all 
the Poles of Austria, Prussia, and Russia; a greater 
Bohemia, taking in Moravia and the Slovaks; a 
great Jugo-Slav commonwealth, including Serbia, 
Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, while the Ru- 
manians in Hungary should become part of Rumania 
and the Italians in Austria part of Italy. The Turk 
must be driven from Europe and Christian and Arab 
freed. Only in this manner can we do justice to the 



66 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

subject peoples tyrannized over by the Germans, 
Magyars, and Turks. Only in this way can we re- 
move the menace of German aggression, which has 
become a haunting nightmare for all civilizations, 
especially in the case of small, well-behaved, liberty- 
loving peoples. 

By declaring war on Germany's allies we do not 
commit ourselves to asking anything that is not 
just for our own allies. But by failing to declare war 
on Germany's allies we are ourselves guilty of in- 
justice to our own allies. 



THE RED CROSS CHRISTMAS 

MEMBERSHIP DRIVE 

December 12, 191 7 

Next week, the week before Christmas, the Red 
Cross wishes to add ten million new members to the 
five million members it already possesses. Last June 
the Red Cross War Council asked the people of the 
United States to raise one hundred millions of 
dollars for Red Cross work, and the people responded 
by raising one hundred and nineteen millions. The 
purpose now is to increase threefold its membership. 
This is the people's war. All people should, so far 
as possible, share the burden and the glory. The 
whole fighting manhood of the Nation, without any 
exception save in the interest of the Nation, should 
be trained to arms and made ready for the front. 
The Liberty Loans should be taken by every one so 



THE RED CROSS CHRISTMAS DRIVE (y'] 

that the bondholders of the Nation may be the 
people of the Nation, and now this Red Cross mem- 
bership campaign is one more Nation-wide effort to 
bring home to all our people their obligations to 
this country and to suffering humanity. 

We must realize that every single individual in 
this country is derelict to his duty unless according 
to his capacity he does his part in helping organize 
for the war. Individual effort alone will not avail 
and Germany's strength has come from her keen 
realization of this fact. We must have an organized 
Nation, both at the front and at home. There can 
be no organization without discipline, and the Red 
Cross is one of the great agencies through which we 
can make progress toward such self-discipline. 

The Red Cross does not ask for the new members 
primarily because of the money they bring. The 
money will do great good, for the need is pressing; 
but even more important than the money will be the 
effect if on Christmas morning the Red Cross can flash 
around the world the news that ten million more 
Americans have joined its ranks and thereby put 
themselves unqualifiedly behind our army and navy. 

The Red Cross has done an extraordinary work 
abroad and is doing an extraordinary work at home. 
Abroad it is in every way supplementing the army 
and navy medical corps in Europe and is accumulat- 
ing enormous hospital supplies for the use of our 
soldiers and sailors. It has sent over a million dollars 
in money and stores to Italy. It is giving both 
military and civilian relief in France. It is supplying 



68 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

over thirty-five hundred French military hospitals 
and two thousand French civil hospitals with surgi- 
cal dressings, drugs, and supplies. It is helping to 
care for half a million tuberculosis victims and re- 
store a million and a half French refugees to normal 
life. At home it is helping to care for the dependent 
families of our soldiers and sailors. It has organized 
fifty-seven army and navy base hospitals, over a 
dozen of which have already been sent to France. 
Its useful activities in different lines are well-nigh 
innumerable. 

This is the work the Red Cross has done and is 
doing for America and the world. Now let all 
Americans in their turn stand by the Red Cross and 
help in its Christmas membership drive. 



BEING BRAYED IN A MORTAR 

December i8, 191 7 

President Wilson speaks in military matters 
through his Secretary of War. The sole importance 
of the Secretary of War's repprt comes from its 
being the ofificial declaration of the President. I 
discuss it as such. 

According to the reports In the New York World, 
the Secretary of War states that " he does not favor 
universal military training as a permanent policy." 
Mr. Wilson's secretary, therefore, takes what is in 
effect the position of Mr. Bryan, which was pictur- 
esquely phrased as being that a million men can at 



BEING BRAYED IN A MORTAR 69 

need spring to arms overnight. The Administra- 
tion's attitude is less picturesquely expressed, but it 
is precisely as futile and as unspeakably mischievous 
from a standpoint of permanent national interest. 
Moreover, it is taken at the very time when the dis- 
astrous effect of the Administration's policy of com- 
plete unpreparedness is being shown by the admis- 
sions of General Crozier on the first day of the con- 
gressional investigation. Mr. Baker's report, Mr. 
Bryan's theory, and the things already shown by the 
congressional investigation dovetail into one an- 
other. They stand in the relation of cause and effect. 
The Administration now ofiicially and complacently 
announces that the policy which at this very moment 
has proved disastrous is to be persevered in for the 
future, therefore assumes complete responsibility for 
every blunder and delay, and for all the misconduct, 
and announces that these blunders and delays and 
all this misconduct have taught us nothing, and that 
we are to amble onward in the same futile path until 
disaster overtakes. Mr. Wilson's Administration 
officially declares that we shall persist in our own 
folly until we are brayed in the mortar of dreadful 
calamity. 

If the Administration frankly and manfully ac- 
knowledged its evil errors in the past and cham- 
pioned a policy which would prevent the repetition 
of these errors in the future, I would think only of 
the future and not of the past, but now it is necessary 
to emphasize the past in order to avoid disaster in 
the future. 



70 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

We are in the eleventh month since Germany 
went to war with us. We have not yet built an aero- 
plane fit to match the speedy battle planes of our 
foes. We have not built a heavy field gun; on the 
contrary, we have had to draw on burdened friends 
to give us artillery. In the training camps of the 
national army the artillery regiments still have about 
ten wooden guns for every old field piece, and they 
have none of the modern guns they are to use in the 
war. There are rifles only for every third or fourth 
man. Until ten months had elapsed there was no 
target practice save for a few specially selected 
units. The troops still have only wooden machine 
guns and the trench mortars they themselves 
improvise. 

Until ten months had elapsed they lacked even 
the necessary warm clothing. They have endured 
entirely needless sufifering and hardship. Our troops 
in France have received thousands of colons, but 
an insufificient number of shoes. At this moment 
not more than one tenth of our soldiers, taken alto- 
gether, are fit to go to battle. Nine tenths of our 
gallant and fine-spirited men are still without the 
training, arms, and equipment that would permit 
them to meet any trained foes. After ten months 
of war and the expenditure of huge sums of money, 
we are still absolutely unable to defend ourselves and 
owe our own safety only to the fleets and armies of 
our war-worn allies. 

This condition is due solely and entirely to the 
policy of unprepared ness to which the Administra- 



RENDERING A GREAT PUBLIC SERVICE 71 

tion adhered for two and one half years when even 
the bhnd ought to have read the lesson of the great 
war. The Administration now announces that we 
are not to alter this policy and that we are to con- 
tinue the do-nothing policy of refusing to help. If 
the American people follow the lead thus given them, 
they will be guilty of criminal folly. 



RENDERING A GREAT PUBLIC SERVICE 

December 20, 191 7 

Senator Chamberlain has rendered a public serv- 
ice by presenting the bill to provide universal ob- 
ligatory military training for all the young men of 
the Nation. Senator Wadsworth has rendered a 
public service by pushing the senatorial investigation 
of our lamentable military unpreparedness. Con- 
gressman Medill McCormick has rendered a public 
service by showing that we have heavily burdened 
our war-worn ally, France, by demanding from her the 
guns which it was inexcusable in us not previously 
to have built. 

These three services all hang together. Senator 
Chamberlain's proposal is to supplant selective con- 
scription after war has begun by universal service, 
which would probably mean the avoidance of war 
altogether. It was grave misfortune that at the 
outset of this war we did not call for a million vol- 
unteers and at the same time put all the young men 
between nineteen and twenty-two into the training 



72 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

camps. There has been some very gross favoritism 
in granting exemption and, moreover, the men be- 
tween twenty-two and thirty-one include a high 
percentage of married men and of others who ought 
not to go to war at present. This unwise, wasteful, 
and inefficient system should not be patched up. 
The Nation sorely needs, both as a war measure and 
as a permanent policy, the immediate introduction 
of universal military training and service for all our 
young men as proposed above. 

Senator Wadsworth and Representative Mc- 
Cormick are in straightforw^ard fashion showing 
the inevitable results of the policy of unpreparedness 
which we have followed for three and a half years, 
and which the Administration, through Secretary 
Baker, now actually advocates as our permanent 
policy. Senator Wadsworth has shown, beyond pos- 
sibility of anything except willful misrepresentation, 
that he has no partisan purpose whatever and that 
the investigation is designed solely to rouse the 
Government and the public to greater efforts in 
speeding up the war. The Committee on Military 
Affairs of the Senate is showing no partisanship. 
They realize that we cannot win the war merely by 
announcing programmes. They realize that we have 
a long road to travel and that we have made a slow 
start. They wish to help the Administration, and 
in order to do this it is imperative to tell the truth. 

Some of the fault for the present situation is due 
to the shortcomings of individuals during the last 
ten months, but the major part is due to our failure 



A BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY 73 

as a Nation to embark on the policy of preparedness 
three and a half years ago. Nine tenths of wisdom 
is being wise in time. Now our people must brace 
themselves to face unpleasant truths. There is not 
the slightest reason for discouragement. If we 
choose, we can, through our governmental repre- 
sentatives, quickly remedy the defects and then 
exert with decisive effect our tremendous latent 
powers. But we need to know the truth and then to 
act with instant and resolute efficiency and with 
single-minded patriotism. 



A BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY 

December 21, 191 7 

President Wilson has announced that we are in 
this war to make the world safe for democracy. 
Either this declaration was worse than empty rhet- 
oric or we are in honor bound to make it good. In- 
deed, to prove false to it now is to be guilty of 
peculiarly offensive hypocrisy. 

The only way to make the world safe for democ- 
racy is to free the people over whom Turkey and 
Austria tyrannize. Every day's delay in declaring war 
on Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria has represented 
and now represents a betrayal of democracy and of 
our allies. It is hypocritical to send an encouraging 
message to Rumania and not to declare war on 
Bulgaria. It is hypocritical to shed crocodile tears 
over Armenia and not to declare war on Turkey. 



74 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

When President Wilson says, " We do not wish in 
any way to rearrange the Austria-Hungarian Em- 
pire; it is no affair of ours what they do," he is 
engaged in the betrayal of democracy, and if his 
present words are to be taken seriously, then his 
declaration about making the world safe for de- 
mocracy was false and empty rhetoric. Either one 
statement or the other must be unsparingly con- 
demned by all honest men. In view of the last 
statement there is small wonder that the Austrian 
Foreign Minister says that " it is to our interest to 
nail down " the statement in question, because it 
abandons the proposal, or, as the Austrian minister 
phrases it, " the catch phrase," to allow all small 
states to determine their own destinies. No wonder 
that the leading Vienna paper contemptuously 
states that President Wilson wishes to act as an 
" European peace intermediary," being one of the 
leaders who " apparently consider a warlike noise 
the best overture to a peace conference." 

There is also no wonder that the Czech Slovaks 
feel with intense bitterness about this betrayal. One 
of their papers in this country describes how loyally 
they have supported America and the Allies, and 
describes the dreadful butcheries and persecutions 
of their men, women, and children in Bohemia, and 
then asks whether it can be true that America now 
really proposes to keep them " under the merciless 
tyranny of the Huns." 

This is precisely what President Wilson proposes 
when he says that it is no affair of ours to rearrange 



A BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY 75 

the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, or, in other words, 
no affair of ours to free the Czechs, Slovaks, Jugo- 
slavs, Italians, and Rumanians, who, together with 
the Poles, make up the majority of the Austro- 
Hungarian Empire and who are ground down by 
tyranny of the Germans and the Magyars. 

The President's proposal represents three separate 
betrayals. 

It is the betrayal of the Slavs of Austria, to whose 
cause our allies have pledged themselves and who 
form a democratic population oppressed by a mili- 
taristic autocracy. 

It is the betrayal of democracy, because we aban- 
don the majority who are our friends into the hands 
of a minority, who despise and hate us. 

It is the betrayal of the free people everywhere to 
Germany, for Germany is now a world menace, 
chiefly because Austria and Turkey are her subject 
allies, and President Wilson's proposal is to leave 
them undisturbed. 

A peace without a change of frontiers and without 
indemnification for brutal wrongdoing, a peace 
which does not create an independent and united 
Poland and a greater Bohemia and Jugo-Slovak 
commonwealth, as well as a greater Italy and a 
greater Rumania, and which does not free and 
indemnify Belgium, would leave every perilous 
problem of Europe unsolved. It would be timid and 
calamitous folly to refuse to touch the disputed 
questions which, if left unanswered, are absolutely 
certain to invite a future war. 



76 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS — 

A STUDY IN CAUSE AND EFFECT 

December 27, 191 7 

It is earnestly to be hoped that the congressional 
investigation into the fruits of our military unpre- 
paredness will keep two objects clearly in mind. 
First, the aim must be to speed up the work of 
efficient war preparation by doing away with all 
the present practices that are wrong. Second, the 
aim should be to make evident to all our people that 
our present shameful shortcomings are due to failure 
to prepare in advance and that never again ought we 
to allow our governmental leaders to put us in such 
a humiliating and unworthy position. 

It will be quite impossible to get at all the facts of 
our unpreparedness. Most officers will be very re- 
luctant to testify to the whole truth. They know 
that they will suffer if they do so, because they have 
seen the punishment inflicted by the Administration 
on Major-General Wood for the sole reason that he 
dared to tell the truth about our shortcomings, and 
dared to advocate preparedness in advance. For 
this reason I am not at liberty to quote the generals, 
colonels, captains, and lieutenants of the artillery, 
infantry, medical corps, and quartermaster corps 
who have told me of their troubles with unheated 
hospitals, insufficient drugs, summer underclothes in 
winter w^eather, lack of overcoats, of shoes, of rifles, 
of ammunition, of cannon. But in the camps I 



BROOMSTICK PREPAREDNESS ^^ 

visited I saw some things so evident that no harm 
can come to any officer from my speaking of them. 

Last fall I saw thousands of men drilling with 
broomsticks. I have such a broomstick now before 
me. Last fall I saw thousands of men drilling with 
rudely whittled wooden guns. I have one such before 
me now. I saw them drilling with wooden machine 
guns as late as the beginning of December. I saw 
barrels mounted on sticks, on which zealous captains 
were endeavoring to teach their men how to ride a 
horse. I saw in the national army camps in Illinois 
and Ohio scores of wooden cannon. Doubtless any 
man can see them now if he goes there. 

The excellent officers in the camps are as rapidly 
as possible remedying these deficiencies. I hope and 
believe that by spring they will all be remedied. But 
let our people not forget that for one year after 
Germany went to war with us we were wholly unable 
to defend ourselves and owed our safety only to the 
English and French ships and armies. 

The cause was our refusal to prepare In advance. 
President Wilson's message of December, 1914, in 
which he ridiculed those who advocated prepared- 
ness, was part of the cause. His presidential cam- 
paign on the " He kept us out of war " issue was part 
of the cause. We paid the price later with broom- 
stick rifles, logwood cannon, soldiers without shoes, 
and epidemics of pneumonia in the camps. We are 
paying the price now. We pay the price In the 
doubled cost of necessary war supplies. W^e pay the 
price in shortage of coal and congested transporta- 



78 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

tion. The refusal to prepare and the price we now 
pay because of the refusal stand in the relation of 
cause and effect. 

I do not dwell on these facts to blame anybody. I 
dwell on them in order to wake our people to the 
necessity of learning the lesson they teach. Our next 
and permanent duty is to introduce the policy of 
universal obligatory military training for all our 
young men before they are twenty-one. 



OUR DUTY FOR THE NEW YEAR 

January i, 191 8 

In the papers there recently appeared a brief state- 
ment made by an unnamed young American major 
to his troops in the trenches in France. He said: * 

We have reached the top in training. If you need any- 
thing, come and tell me and I will get it for you if I can. If 
I do not get it, I do not want to hear about it again, for it 
means that I cannot get it. We will have three meals a day 
if we can get them. If we have to miss one meal, we will not 
be badly off, and if we miss two or three, it will not be much 
worse. We are expected to work from midnight of one day 
to midnight of the next day. If there is any chance to sleep 
between, all right. It will also be all right if there is no 
chance. Let everybody pitch in. While mud and water must 
be fought, it may be much worse. The hopes of the Nation 
are fixed on each man. 

The ideal of duty thus set before our soldiers, be- 
fore the Americans who at this time risk most and 
suffer most, is substantially the ideal of duty toward 
which all of the rest of us here in America should, in 



OUR DUTY FOR THE NEW YEAR 79 

our turn, likewise strive. We must brace ourselves ^ 
for effort and for endurance through a hard and 
dangerous year. High of heart and with unfaltering 
soul, we must do our part in the grim work of toiling 
and fighting to bring a little nearer the day when 
there shall be orderly liberty throughout the world 
and when justice and mercy and brotherly love shall 
obtain between man and man and among all the 
nations of mankind. We must show our faith by 
our works. We must prove our truth by our en- 
deavor. We must scorn the baseness which uses 
high-sounding speech to cloak ignoble action and 
which seems to betray suffering right with the Judas 
kiss of the treacherous peace. 

During the year that is opening we at home will "^ 
suffer discomfort and privation and wearing anxiety. 
What of it? What we at home endure will be as 
nothing compared to that which is faced by the sons 
and brothers, by the husbands and fathers at the 
front, and what the fighting men of to-day face and 
bear will be no harder than what was faced and 
borne by Washington's troops at Valley Forge and 
Trenton and by the soldiers of Grant and Lee when 
they wrestled in the Wilderness. We inherit as free 
men this fair and mighty land only because our 
fathers and forefathers had iron in their blood. We 
can leave our heritage undiminished to those who 
come after us only if we in our turn show a resolute 
and rugged manliness in the dark days of trial that 
have come upon us. 

Let us all individually and collectively do our 



x^ 



8o ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

whole duty with brave hearts. Let us pay our taxes, 
subscribe to the government loans, work at our 
several tasks with all our strength, support all the 
agencies which take care of our troops, and accept 
the stinting in fuel or food as part of the price we 
pay. Let our prime care be the welfare and warlike 
efficiency of the men at the front and in the training 
camps. Let us hold to sharp account every public 
servant who in any way comes short of his duty in 
this respect. But let us also insist that the soldiers at 
the front and in the camps treat every shortcoming 
merely as an obstacle to be overcome or remedied 
or offset by their own energy and courage and 
resourcefulness. The one absolute essential for our 
people is to insist that this war be seen through at 
no matter what cost until it is crowned with the 
peace of overwhelming victory for the right. 



TELL THE TRUTH AND SPEED UP 

THE WAR 

January 4, 191 8 

Any man who at this time leaves undone anything 
to increase our fighting efficiency is a foe of America 
and a friend of Germany. The man who objects to 
fearless exposure and criticism of the governmental 
shortcomings which must be exposed if they are to 
be corrected is a foe to America and a friend to 
Germany, and in addition shows that he possesses a 
thoroughly servile mind. The critic whose criticism 



TELL THE TRUTH 8i 

is not constructive, or who treats shortcomings as 
causes for being disheartened about the war instead 
of as an incentive to strive for the greater efficiency 
in waging the war and in preparing for the future, is 
a foe to America and a friend to every present or 
future foe of America. 

When the Administration stands against universal 
miHtary training and talks with vague looseness of 
future paper guarantees against war, it renders it 
imperatively necessary to bring home to our people 
the tremendous damage done by our lamentable 
foll}^ in refusing to prepare since August, 1914. It is 
a betrayal of our country to protest against telling 
the truth for this purpose. 

This is the twelfth month since Germany in effect 
declared war on us and we broke relations with 
Germany. We have developed our military strength 
so slowly that as yet we would be wholly unable to 
defend ourselves if we were not protected by the 
fleets and armies of our allies. No modern armies 
can fight without training in modern war methods 
and without modern field guns, auto rifles and air- 
planes. As yet we only have either cannon borrowed 
from the hard-pressed French or else wooden cannon. 
We have no auto rifles. Our airplanes are still unfit 
to fight modern war planes. 

The Patriotic Education Society of Washington 
has done capital constructive work in truthfully 
telling our needs. It has fearlessly shown our dread- 
ful shortage in shipbuilding and the deceitful word- 
ing of government announcements designed to con- 



82 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

ceal this shortage. It has shown the vital need of 
our, at this late time, bending every energy to 
building ships by working three eight-hour shifts a 
day in order to put our soldiers and supplies at the 
front at the earliest possible moment. The building 
of transport ships was the central feature of the 
problem we faced on January 31a year ago. It was 
not only a misfortune, but a crime, to neglect it, as 
for nine months afterward it was neglected. The 
newspapers have just printed the statement that 
Colonel House's committee reports that it is of the 
utmost importance to get our troops quickly to the 
front. Of course it is. Every man of broad vision 
has known this for a year. If there had been more 
fearless truth-telling during the year there would 
have been much less governmental delay and 
inefficiency 

Tell the truth and speed up the war. Tell the 
truth only for constructive purposes and only with 
the unalterable determination to exert every particle 
of our strength at the earliest possible moment, so 
as to win peace by overwhelming victory. , 



THE COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 

January 6, 191 8 

Senator Chamberlain, in order to minimize the 
chance of future war and to insure us against dis- 
aster, if in future war should unhappily come, has 
introduced a bill for universal military training of 



THE COST OF UNPREPAREDNESS 83 

our young men under the age of twenty-one. The 
Administration declares against universal training 
and therefore for a continuance of the policy of un- 
preparedness, the fruits of which we are enjo3ang. 
Some of these fruits are as follows: 

According to the statement of Mr. Fitzgerald, the 
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of 
the House, Congress appropriated during the last 
year $18,880,000,000 and provided authorization for 
which cash must be supplied before next July of 
$2,510,000,000, making our year's war expenses a 
grand total of $21,390,000,000. This equals the 
entire sum Great Britain expended during the first 
three years of the war. It is over twenty times as 
great as for any previous year in our history, except 
the year that saw the close of the Civil War, and 
it is seventeen times as great as that. The appropri- 
ations for the year are twenty-two times as great as 
the total interest-bearing debt of the United States 
one year ago. They come within four billion dollars 
of the total expenditures of the United States Gov- 
ernment from 1776 to 191 7. They equal the ex- 
penditure of twenty dollars a minute for every min- 
ute since the birth of Christ. 

Had we started to prepare in time, one half of 
this cost would have been saved. The tremendous 
pressure coming suddenly caused an immense in- 
crease in expenditures, even aside from the futile 
waste, extravagance, and misdirection. Had we gone 
into the war when the Lusitania was sunk, we would 
have saved a third of the sum, for we have provided 



84 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

to loan our allies about seven billions. Our delay in 
going to war and, above all, delay in preparing, have 
resulted in a huge increase in the money chest and 
in the length of the war and in the terrible total of 
avoidable human suffering. 

The lack of preparedness is responsible for the 
sickness among our soldiers. Take as an example 
the ravages of pneumonia in the training camps. 
The men in the training camps are physically of 
exceptional type and are in the prime of life. Their 
death-rate ought not normally to be more than a 
small fraction of that in New York City, where the 
total population includes the very young, the very 
old, the weak and sick, the badly nurtured. The 
population of New York City is 4,800,000. The 
population of the thirty camps is about six hundred 
thousand. In the two weeks of last December the 
death-rate in the city from pneumonia was one to 
every 16,500 people. In the camps it was one to 
2800. Therefore, the specially selected men of the 
camps suffered from a death-rate six times as great 
as in the heterogeneous city population. And of 
every three men attacked, one died. 

Doubtless administrative blundering during the 
last year is largely responsible for this showing. 
But the prime cause is the failure to prepare in 
advance. Our first duty at the moment is to speed 
up the war. Our second duty is to secure real 
preparedness as outlined in Senator Chamberlain's 
bill. 



COOPERATION AND CONTROL 85 

COOPERATION AND CONTROL 

January 8, 191 8 

The assumption of control by the Government over 
the railroads was certainly necessary. Exactly how 
far it will go is not evident. At present what 
has been done is merely to introduce government 
supervision and control over railroads which are re- 
quired to combine their operations in flat defiance of 
the Sherman Law. In other words, the Government 
has wisely abandoned the effort to enforce competi- 
tion among the railroads and has introduced the 
principle of control over corporative organizations. 
The Attorney-General has just announced that he 
will, for the time being, abandon the suits under the 
Sherman Law to break up the harvester and steel 
corporations, because it is not wise to do so during 
the war. Mr. Culbertson, the able expert on the 
government tariff board, has announced that the 
Sherman Law is mischievous in international trade. 
Mr. Francis Heney, than whom in all the country 
there is no more determined and efficient enemy of 
wrongdoing corporations, has stated that the Sher- 
man Law, the so-called Anti-Trust Law, is mis- 
chievous in our domestic business and should be 
repealed. In other words, under the strain of the 
war the Sherman Law has completely broken down 
and the Government is not merely conniving at, 
but encouraging, its violation by many different 
corporations. 



86 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

The Sherman Law, or so-called Anti-Trust Law, is 
just as mischievous in peace as in war. It represents 
an effort to meet a great evil in the wrong way. As 
long as corporations claimed complete immunity 
from government control, the first necessity was to 
establish the right of the Government to control 
them. This right and power of the Government was 
established by the Northern Securities suit, which 
prevented all the railroads of the country from being 
united under one corporation which defied govern- 
ment control. The suits against the Standard Oil 
and Tobacco trusts followed. The Supreme Court 
decreed that the trusts had been guilty of grave 
misconduct and should be dissolved, but not a 
particle of good followed their dissolution. It is 
evident that the Sherman Law, or so-called Anti- 
Trust Law, in no way meets the evils of the indus- 
trial world. To try to break up corporations because 
they are big and efficient is either ineffective or 
mischievous. What is needed is to exercise govern- 
ment control over them, so as to encourage their 
efficiency and prosperity, but to insure that the effi- 
ciency is used in the public interest and that the 
prosperity is properly passed around. 

Merely to repeal the Sherman Law without 
putting anything in its place would do harm. It 
should at once be amended or superseded by a law 
which would in some shape permit and require 
the issuing of licenses by the Federal Government 
to corporations doing an interstate or international 
business. Corporations which did not take out such 



THE ARTEMUS WARD THEORY OF WAR 87 

licenses or comply with the rules of the Govern- 
ment's administrative board would be subject to the 
Sherman Law. The others would be under govern- 
ment control and would be encouraged to cooperate 
and in every way to become prosperous and efficient, 
the Government guaranteeing by its supervision 
that the corporations' prosperity and efficiency were 
in the public interest. 



THE ARTEMUS WARD THEORY OF WAR 

January 17, 191 8 

The great American humorist, Artemus Ward, 
whose writings gave such delight to Abraham Lin- 
coln, once remarked that he was willing to sacrifice 
all his wife's relatives on the altar of the country. 
Mr, Ward was not in President Lincoln's Cabinet. 
Mr. Baker is in President Wilson's Cabinet. He 
takes substantially the same ground that Artemus 
Ward took, although possibly with a more uncon- 
scious humor. He has just uttered a heroic senti- 
ment expressing his pleased acquiescence in the 
sacrifice of France and England's armies for the 
defense of the common cause. 

On Wednesday of last week, discussing the likeli- 
hood that the Germans, relieved from anxiety of 
Russia, would make a tremendous assault on the 
western front, Mr. Baker said: "The impending 
German offensive will possibly be their greatest 
assault. The French and British armies can be relied 



88 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

upon to withstand the shock." Mr. Baker is Presi- 
dent Wilson's Secretary of War. He holds at this 
time the most important office in our Government. 
He thus announces to our allies and the world that 
in the twelfth month after Germany went to war 
with us, America, the richest country of the world 
with a population of one hundred million people, 
after being at war nearly a year and after such warn- 
ing as never a nation had before, is wholly unable to 
send any effective assistance to repel the greatest 
assault of the war, and that the only military meas- 
ure which can be taken is to express through Mr. 
Baker the belief that the British and French armies 
can be relied upon to do alone the duty which we 
ought to share with them. 

This statement of Mr. Baker absolves us from all 
necessity of commenting on his ingenuous defense 
of a system of preparedness which leaves our small 
army at the front with no artillery except what we 
get from the French and our army at home with 
batteries made out of telegraph poles and logwood. 
It is not necessary to discuss the exact amount of 
pride we should as a Nation take in the fact that 
as a Nation after eleven months of war we are 
proudly emerging from the broomstick rifle stage 
preparedness into the telegraph pole stage prepared- 
ness. Mr. Baker's statement sums up the situation 
exactly. We have been at war nearly a year, and 
when the Germans make their greatest assault our 
preparedness is only such as to warrant our express- 
ing belief that our allies can win without our help. 



THE FRUITS OF WATCHFUL WAITING 89 

The New York Times, a supporter of the Adminis- 
tration, comments truthfully on the situation: 

Nine months after entering the war not only are we giving 
our allies no effective military aid, but all our bustle and stir 
doesn't hide the fact that, through incompetence and lack of 
organization and system, we are far behind in our prepara- 
tions to supply rifles, ammunition, machine guns, airships, 
uniforms, clothing for the troops we shall some time have at 
the front. Our backwardness is naturally disquieting to our 
allies. If one million American soldiers, or half that number, 
fully equipped, had stood on the soil of France, Lloyd George 
would have made no speech to British workingmen restating 
after a fashion the war aims of the Allies. There would have 
been no occasion, nor demand for a speech telling the labor 
unions what the troops of Britain are fighting for. 

The pacifists and the agencies of German intrigue 
would not be working for a peace in the interests of 
the capitalistic and militaristic autonomy of Ger- 
many. As the Times well says, the man who now 
works for such a peace while Germany is uncon- 
quered " is the most heartless of militarists or enemy 
of the world's peace and freedom." 



THE FRUITS OF WATCHFUL WAITING 

January 18, 191 8 

We have been at war nearly one year. We have 
failed to do any damage to Germany, but we have 
done a great deal of damage to ourselves. Recently 
the President's Secretary of War announced that the 
war was three thousand miles away and so he had 
not prepared to meet it. Incidentally the feats of the 



90 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

German submarine off Newport in the fall of 191 6 
showed that if it had not been for the Allied fleets 
and armies the war would then have been on our own 
shores. But at the moment it is three thousand 
miles away, and yet this Nation is suffering the 
kind of grave economic derangement that we would 
suffer if a hostile army was on our own shores. We 
have accomplished very little. We have suffered 
very much. Both the failure in accomplishment and 
the amount of avoidable suffering are due to the 
resolute refusal of our Government to prepare in 
advance and to its fatuous persistence in the policy 
of watchful waiting. 

Doubtless part of the present trouble in connec- 
tion with coal is due to unwisdom in the price-fixing 
of bituminous coal. Doubtless part of it is due to the 
railway congestion, which in its turn is due to the 
complete lack of system and consequent chaos due 
to suddenly imposing on well-meaning, stodgy gov- 
ernment officials of average capacity the duty of 
dealing in a tremendous hurry with a situation of 
unprecedented size, complexity, and importance, 
but the temporary causes are all secondary to the 
great cause of complete failure to prepare in advance. 

Our economic unpreparedness is just as complete 
as our military unpreparedness and is one of the 
chief factors therein. We are now paying bitterly for 
the fact that two and three years ago it was deemed 
politically wise to shape our governmental policy 
along the lines of " Watchful waiting " and " He 
kept us out of war." 



THE FRUITS OF WATCHFUL WAITING 91 

If three years ago we had begun in good faith and 
earnestly to prepare, and if, when the Lusitania was 
sunk, we had acted as precisely as we did act with no 
more provocation in February, last, this war would 
now have been over. An immense amount of blood- 
shed would have been spared and the danger of 
German militarism would have been forever averted. 
In such case we would have greatly developed the 
trained administrators and the coherent system 
necessary to deal wisely with the economic no less 
than the military features of a great war. Our re- 
fusal to prepare in advance and our fatuous accept- 
ance of rhetorical platitudes as a substitute for 
preparations have resulted in our present military 
impotence and profound and far-reaching economic 
derangement. The profound business distrust, the 
unrest of labor, the coal famine, the congestion of 
traffic, and the shutting down of industries at the 
time when it is most important that production 
should be speeded to the highest point, all are due 
primarily to the refusal to face facts during the first 
two years and a half of the World War and the seeth- 
ing welter of inefficiency and confusion in which the 
policy of watchful waiting finally plunged us. Nine 
tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. All far- 
sighted patriots most earnestly hope that this 
Nation will learn the bitter lesson and that never 
again will we be caught so shamefully unprepared, 
spiritually, economically, and from the military 
standpoint as has been the case in the year that is 
now passing. 



92 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

TELL THE TRUTH 
January 21, 191 8 

Nearly a year has passed since, on February 3, by 
formally breaking relations with Germany, we re- 
luctantly admitted that she had gone to war with us. 
During that year it has been incessantly insisted that 
it was unpatriotic under any consideration to tell 
an unpleasant truth or to point out a governmental 
shortcoming. The result has not been happy. 

The famous war correspondent, Mr. Caspar 
Whitney, has returned from the front so that he 
might avoid our fatuous and sinister censorship, 
and tell our people the truth about our army in 
France. He shows that this army, which, Secretary 
Baker had just assured our people, was admirably 
equipped, in reality had no cannon or machine guns 
except those it had borrowed from the hard-pressed 
French; that there was a lamentable shortage of 
shoes; that the motor cars were poor; that we had 
no airplanes. From another source it appeared that 
many thousand coffins had been sent over. Our troops 
had no shoes, but they had plenty of coffins. Their 
ammunition was -defective, and they had neither can- 
non nor auto rifles; but they had plenty of coffins. 

At the same time the death of gallant Major 
Gardner from pneumonia called sharp attention to 
the evil health conditions in most of our home train- 
ing camps, and the Senate investigating committee 
showed a really appalling slackness and inefficiency in 



CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM 93 

the management of the War Department under Mr. 
Baker. There is no particular reason to blame Mr. 
Baker; he did not appoint himself; he did not seek the 
office. Logwood cannon and wooden auto rifles are 
mostly incidental features of the inevitable outcome. 

All this was done in the face of repeated and ex- 
plicit warnings from the best authority. Major- 
General Leonard Wood told the military committee 
of the Senate and of the House in detail about our 
shortcomings two years ago, and again one year ago. 
The Administration not only refused to remedy 
these shortcomings, but has spitefully punished 
General Wood ever since. 

Criticism should be both truthful and construc- 
tive. I have told not the whole truth, but the mini- 
mum truth absolutely necessary in order that we 
may, before it is too late, speed up the war, and in 
order that we may insist on the passage of the 
Chamberlain Bill, so that never again may we be 
caught utterly and shamefully unprepared. Let us 
insist that the truth be told. The truth only harms 
weaklings. The American people wish the truth, 
and can stand the truth. 



JUSTIFICATION OF CONSTRUCTIVE 

CRITICISM 

January 28, 1918 

Senator Chamberlain and his excellent committee 
have already seen the justification of their investiga- 



94 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

tion. They have forced the appointment of Mr. 
Stettinius, a trained and capable expert, as head of 
the war supplies purchasing department. The fact 
that the appointment is made in order to obviate 
the need of following Senator Chamberlain's more 
thoroughgoing programme does not alter the fact 
that it represents a certain advance and that this 
advance is primarily due to the investigation by 
Senator Chamberlain's committee. It is a striking 
tribute to the necessity for and the good results of 
that investigation. 

The investigation has been wholly non-partisan. 
It has been conducted with an eye single to the needs 
of the army and of our country. Senator Cham- 
berlain is a Democrat, just as Secretary Baker is a 
Democrat. The committee has fearlessly exposed 
very grave abuses and shortcomings and has taken 
constructive action to remedy them. Secretary 
Baker's testimony shows that, to use the language of 
Senator Chamberlain, the President has been misled 
as to the facts. His statements as to the satisfactory 
condition of things in the camps are not in accord 
with the facts. It is, of course, exceedingly difficult 
to get testimony from army officers because they 
have vividly before their eyes the signal punishment 
inflicted by the Administration on General Wood for 
fearlessly telling the truth, and those of us who have 
examined conditions and know how bad they are 
cannot give our authorities in many cases because 
we will not expose good officers to punishment in 
order to save ourselves from contradiction. 



CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM 95 

But certain vitally important facts are easily 
attainable. At the very time that Secretary Baker 
was testifying that the army had enough rifles, the 
governor of Mississippi in the public press on Janu- 
ary 17 stated that he had been helpless to prevent 
the burning alive of a negro because the home guards 
had no rifles and because " there are over five hun- 
dred national guardsmen at Camp Jackson, but 
they are equally helpless because they have no 
rifles." Many deficiencies can be covered up or their 
existence denied, but some cannot thus be concealed. 
Any one can see the wooden cannon and wooden 
machine guns in the training camps, every one knows 
that our army at the front has French cannon and 
French machine guns. Will not Secretary Baker 
state frankly when our own cannon and machine 
guns will be ready? After one year of war we have 
none. Must we wait another year before getting 
them? Caspar Whitney, a responsible man, has 
stated lamentable shortcomings of our army at the 
front. Will not the Secretary advise us what steps 
he has taken to investigate this statement and 
remedy the shortcomings? 

The appointment of Mr. Stettinius is a good thing, 
but it does not represent even a half step toward 
bringing order out of the administrative chaos at 
Washington. Drastic action is needed to secure a 
plan providing for coordination, responsibility and 
efliciency, and above all, for securing the right men 
to administer the plan. 



96 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

SECRETARY BAKER'S GENERAL DENIAL 

February 2, 191 8 

Secretary Baker's denial of any serious short- 
comings in the administration of the War Depart- 
ment comes under several heads. Part of it is 
prophecy, which we all hope will turn out to be 
justified. Part of it is explanation or denials of facts, 
as to which it is easy to get first-hand information. 
With this part I shall deal in my next editorial. 
Part of it relates to allegations as to which it is al- 
most impossible to get first-hand information except 
from officers whose names cannot be quoted, because 
this would probably entail punishment upon them. 
It is with this part that I now deal. 

General Wood two years ago, before the congres- 
sional committee, and again one year ago, before the 
':ongressional committee, set forth in detail our un- 
preparedness. Every fact he stated has proved to 
be true and to be but a small part of the truth. Yet 
he has been singled out for punishment because of 
thus having told Congress the truth, and this al- 
though we and our allies are now paying dearly for 
our failure to act on the truth which he thus told. 
Under such conditions it is impossible to make public 
the names of the officers and enlisted men through 
whom we occasionally learn of abuses. Neverthe- 
less, it is imperative to try to correct the abuses. If 
the Administration had not punished General Wood 
for telling the truth, the complaints would be at once 



SECRETARY BAKER'S GENERAL DENIAL 97 

laid before the department and the wrongs remedied. 
Under existing conditions it is imperative to call pub- 
lic attention to them. 

A major-general informed me in October that he 
had one hundred rifles for twenty thousand men, and 
most strongly felt that these men should not have 
been brought to the camp until the hospitals, 
barracks, heating arrangements, clothes, and arms 
were ready for them. Another major-general told 
me, in explanation of the shortage of supplies abroad, 
that one shipload of big coast defense guns had to be 
returned because when they reached France it was 
discovered that there were no carriages for them. 
Hundreds of officers and non-commissioned officers 
have told me of lack of overcoats, of winter under- 
clothing, of heavy socks. One quartermaster, being 
unable otherwise to get woolen gloves for the men in 
cold weather, finally got them from the Red Cross 
and was officially reprimanded for so doing. Two 
officers informed me that when in France there was 
a shortage of shoes. They were told it was due to a 
shipment of coffins, one being told that they were 
not regular coffins, but boxes containing grave- 
clothes. The newspaper correspondents repeatedly 
have told of the shortage of shoes, one recent state- 
ment being that a shipment of clay pigeons, not 
coffins, was sent over, while Mr. Caspar Whitney 
recites that the surplusage was a large shipment of 
hospital cots. At any rate, the shortage of shoes is 
unquestioned, whether their places were taken by 
coffins, clay pigeons, or hospital cots. A leading 



98 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

New York business man has just written me of the 
complete lack of hospital and medical facilities in 
one camp. The superintendent of a Bible teachers' 
training school writes that his son volunteered, 
leaving a wife and two little children; that his pay 
was over a month in arrears, and that at Christmas 
time he wrote as follows: 

We have not yet received our November pay. At this 
time of the year the boys don't want it for themselves; they 
want to send some Httle thing home to their mothers or wives 
or sweethearts, and in lots of cases to their children, to whom 
just a little something from daddy means so much. Yet even 
that little pleasure is denied us. Can you not bring this to the 
attention of the people who are supporting this Government? 

I have received many hundreds such appeals. To 
give the names of the writers would insure their 
punishment. To pay no heed to their appeals means 
that the abuses go unremedied. Doubtless an occa- 
sional informant is in error in his statement. But 
Senator Chamberlain's speech and the testimony 
taken before his committee prove that the important 
statements I have made during the last few months 
as to the shortcomings in our army have been more 
than warranted by the facts. 

LET GEORGE SPEED UP THE WAR 
February 3, 191 8 

In my last editorial I spoke of the things of which 
Secretary Baker explicitly or implicitly denies the 
existence, in justifying the Administration for the 
military delay and shortcomings that have marked 



LET GEORGE SPEED UP THE WAR 99 

our entry into war. But as to the major facts there 
is no room for denial. As to these Secretary Baker 
falls back on the comfortable doctrine that all our 
shortcomings are of no consequence because they 
are made good anyhow by the efforts of our allies — 
who, by the way, with preposterous silliness, are 
in official circles merely termed our associates. 
Secretary Baker explains that, although our forces 
in France have no field artillery or auto rifles, this 
is of no consequence because the French love to give 
us artillery and auto rifles. He explains that the 
greatest German offensive movement of the war is 
about to take place, an offensive movement which, 
if successful, means that we have lost the war, and 
he adds that we can trust England and France to 
repel this offensive. This is a naked statement that 
we are to let George do it. We are to announce that 
after being at war just a year our delays have been 
so great that we are almost negligible in the military 
sense and that we must trust to our allies to speed up 
the war. 

This verifies the prediction of von Hindenburg 
and von Tirpitz that it would take us eighteen 
months to become a real factor in the war. Ameri- 
cans laughed at this statement, but the ruthless and 
brutal and intelligent Germans were right and our 
own soft sentimentalities were their efficient allies. 
We are in the position of letting George speed up 
the war. Are the citizens of a proud and high- 
spirited Nation to be content with such a position? 

Our major shortcomings can neither be concealed 



loo ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

nor denied. In October I personally saw thousands 
of Infantrymen drilling with sticks. In December I 
still saw artillerymen with sticks instead of rifles. A 
month ago most of the cannon in the national army 
camps, which I saw, were made of logs or of sections 
of telegraph poles and all the machine guns I saw 
were wooden dummies. The daily press has re- 
peatedly published photos of these wooden rifles, 
cannon, and machine guns. Secretary Baker cannot 
deny this nor can he deny that in modern war an 
army without artillery is helpless. We are now 
getting a small number of machine guns. We are 
turning some heavy coast guns into field artillery, 
but as yet gallant General Pershing and his gallant 
men in France have to trust to the French for ar- 
tillery and machine guns and war planes, and, thanks 
to our dawdling and indecision, we have an utterly 
insufficient number of cargo ships. 

We have been at war a year. In April Congress 
stated that Germany had already committed re- 
peated acts of war against us and that our own dec- 
laration of war was formal. It was then too late 
to undo the criminal mischief caused by our refusal 
to prepare during the preceding two and a half 
years, but we aggravated the damage immensely by 
our delays and follies. If we had exercised reason- 
able energy we would in six months have achieved 
more than we have actually achieved in a year. The 
least we can do now is to speed up the war ourselves. 
Let us insist that this be the end toward which with 
all our energy we now strive. 



LET UNCLE SAM GET INTO THE GAME loi 

LET UNCLE SAM GET INTO THE GAME 

February 5, 1918 

No one can tell how long this war will last. It may 
last three years more, and we should prepare accord- 
ingly. But it may close this year, and it is unpardon- 
able of us not to act with such speed as to make our 
help available in substantial form at once. Uncle 
Sam must not be put in the position of the sub, who 
only gets into the game just before the whistle 
blows. Above all, he must not so act as to rouse 
suspicion that this attitude is due to deliberate 
shirking on his part. 

The prime aid in getting Uncle Sam into the game 
has come from the men who, in order to achieve this 
object, have truthfully set forth the unpleasant facts 
about our delay, military inefficiency, and total un- 
preparedness. The critics of these men have been 
either unwise or insincere. The most fatuous form 
of objection to such truth-telling is the assertion that 
it tends to prolong the war. It is the only thing that 
will shorten the war. Suppression of the truth as the 
habitual governmental policy has been successful in 
preventing our people from realizing our mistakes 
and even more successful in preventing their remedy. 

An excellent example of this policy of falsehood is 
furnished in a letter from a news agency offering to 
various newspapers cartoons assailing me because I 
had " criticized our unpreparedness and urged an 
immediate movement toward universal obligatory 
military training," the cartoonist saying that I had 



io'2 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

said that I had seen artillerymen drilling with 
" wooden guns made from pieces of telegraph poles." 
The writer admitted this, but stated that *' these 
wooden imitations were as efficient for the purposes 
of learning as the real guns." I suppose that this 
particular champion of military inefficiency would 
believe that a rifle team could train for a champion- 
ship match with dummy rifles of wood. 

Every important criticism made of our military 
unpreparedness and inefficiency during the past six 
months, and indeed during the preceding three years, 
has been proved true and in no case has there been 
correction of the abuse until it was exposed. General 
Pershing has just written home a scathing indict- 
ment of the military shortcomings of our higher 
officers abroad. This is after we have been at war a 
year, and it is directly due to the character of both 
the civilian and the military control that has been 
exercised from the swivel chairs of the War Depart- 
ment during this year. 

Our duty is solely to the country and to every 
official high or low precisely to the extent to which 
he loyally, disinterestedly, and efficiently serves the 
country. Let us get behind the United States. Let 
us think only of our patriotic duty. I care not a rap 
for politics at such a time as this. I supported Sen- 
ator Chamberlain, my political and to some extent 
my personal opponent in the past, because on the 
great issue now up he served the country. I sup- 
ported General Crowder, of whose politics I know 
nothing and care less, because he served the country. 
Stand behind America. 



CONSERVATION IS IMPORTANT 103 

CONSERVATION IS IMPORTANT AND 

PRODUCTION IS MORE IMPORTANT 

February 15, 191 8 

It is very Important that we should conserve many 
things, but especially food. It is, however, very 
much more important that we shall produce the 
food in order to conserve it. The governmental 
attitude toward production during the past year 
has been, at points, very unwise. There has not 
only been failure to encourage producing the one 
thing vitally necessary to this Nation at this time, 
but there has been at times, by unwise price-fixing, 
a direct discouragement of producing. 

We have suffered severely during this winter be- 
cause of this attitude in the matter of coal produc- 
tion. One of the factors In producing the misery and 
discomfort, especially among people of limited means 
during the severe weather of the last few months, 
was the improperly low price rate established last 
summer, and the uncertain and contradictory atti- 
tude of the Government on the question of coal 
production. 

But important though all production Is, the pro- 
duction of food, the production which we owe to the 
farmer, is the most Important of all. This country 
needs more food. Its allies need more food. Only 
the farmer can give the food. It is nonsense to 
expect him to produce It unless he can make his 
livelihood by so doing. The farmer is thoroughly 



104 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

patriotic; he stands ready now as he has stood 
ready in every crisis of the Nation, pledged to do his 
full duty, and a little more than his duty. But he 
makes his livelihood by producing what is essential 
to the livelihood of the rest of us. He cannot produce 
unless he makes his livelihood. Not a step should 
be taken that interferes with his welfare, save after 
such wise and cautious inquiry as to make us certain 
that the step is necessary. 

We should do whatever is necessary to help the 
farmer produce the maximum of food at this time. 
Moreover, every step we take should be conditioned 
upon securing the farmer's permanent well-being. 
The city man is often utterly ignorant of the work 
and of the needs of the man who lives in the open 
country. The working-man and the business man 
who growl about one another are a little apt to join 
in growling about the farmer. The city Socialist is 
more utterly ignorant of the farmer than any other 
human being. Last fall the Socialist campaign in 
New York had for one of its battle cries the an- 
nouncement that they intended to make the farmer 
give them five-cent milk. Apparently the detail 
that the farmer had to feed the cows and take care 
of them struck them as unworthy of notice. 

The farmer must have labor. But there must be 
no importation of Chinese or any other cheap labor, 
whether permanent or temporary. The emergency 
need of farm labor for planting and harvesting can 
be met at this time just as the need for the national 
army was met. The farmer must have first-class 



THE PEOPLE'S WAR 105 

prices for his products. No price-fixing at his ex- 
pense must be gone into without the clearest ne- 
cessity being shown, and above all there must be no 
repetition of the folly that marked the dealing with 
the fuel situation last summer. The farmer must 
have what capital he needs at a rate of interest not 
excessive, in order to plant and reap his crop this 
year. The aid can be given to groups of farmers who 
underwrite one another, so to speak, and, of course, 
if he can be given it by private means, so much the 
better. If that is impossible, then the Government 
should act. We should profit by the admirable 
California example to see that the help is given only 
to the man who is a real farmer and can really make 
use of it, but that it is extended in such a way as to 
be of genuine and material benefit. 

This is the immediate need, and let us treat meet- 
ing this need as the opening wedge of a policy de- 
signed to prevent the growth of tenant farms at the 
expense of the farm owner who tills his own soil, 
and designed also to put a premium upon the per- 
manent prosperity of the small farmer as compared 
with the big landowner. 



THE PEOPLE'S WAR 

February 26, 191 8 

It is not agreeable to keep insisting on the need of ^ 
doing better than we have done. It is not agreeable 
to keep pointing out our shortcomings, but to do so 



io6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

is the only way of remedying them and of securing 
better action in the future. 

The people, some of them well-meaning, some of 
them anything but well-meaning, who denounce 
criticism and who object to telling the minimum of 
truth necessary to correct our faults, are the efficient 
allies of Germany and the foes of the United States. 
Actual events have shown that fatuous complacency 
on the part of our officials has resulted in inefficiency 
and delay which would have meant overwhelming 
disaster to this Nation if we had not been protected 
by the fleets and armies of England and France. 

For the first eleven months of this war the ineffi- 
ciency at vital points in our Government, notably in 
the matter of shipping and in the management of 
the War Department, was worse than anything 
Russia herself has ever seen. Nearly thirteen months 
have now passed since Germany went to war with us 
and we broke relations with Germany and after- 
wards timidly and helplessly drifted stern foremost 
into what we styled a " formal " state of war. The 
Russo-Japanese War likewise began before there 
was any formal declaration of war. It only lasted 
sixteen months. We have been accustomed to hold 
out Russia's action during that sixteen months as a 
miracle of inefficiency, but she showed herself far 
less inefficient than we have shown ourselves during 
the thirteen months that have just passed, and, of 
course, there was nothing in her conduct quite as 
bad as our criminal folly in utterly failing in any 
shape or way to prepare during the two and a half 



THE PEOPLE'S WAR 107 

previous years. There is just one difference between 
the two cases. Russia did not have England and 
France to protect her from the effects of her folly. 
That we have been at liberty to indulge in our folly 
with impunity is due only to the fact that England 
and France have protected us with the blood of their 
bravest, while we have refused to prepare and then 
delayed and blundered and fatuously boasted after 
the war came on. Every pro-German, of course, 
heartily applauds these blunders and delays and 
bitterly objects to their being pointed out, but every 
American with a particle of patriotism in him, every 
American proud of his country, should learn the 
bitter lesson and should resolve that never again 
will we permit our great Nation to be put in such an 
ignoble position. 

Our worst failure, of course, has been our failure 
to grapple with the shipping problem. But there 
have been many such failures. One was the failure 
to equip Pershing's army. I do not believe a more 
gallant little army than Pershing's was ever sent 
abroad, but without abundant artillery, machine 
guns, and airplanes a modern army is as helpless as 
if its men were armed only with stone-headed axes. 
Pershing's army has only the field artillery, machine 
guns, and airplanes that the French have given it, 
and this, although since our troops landed last June, 
a longer time has elapsed than covered the whole 
Franco-Prussian War. As regards the field artillery, 
the fault is due to the blind refusal of the Govern- 
ment to prepare in advance to build the guns. As 



io8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR ' 

regards the machine guns and auto rifles, the fault 
is due to our Government's refusal during the last 
thirteen months to utilize the Lewis gun. 

Steps have been taken to remedy some of the 
worst of these evils in the War Department. They 
have been taken only and purely because of public 
criticism of them and because of the fearless exposure 
of inefficiency of Senator Chamberlain and his 
colleagues of the Senate investigating committee. 
Until this committee began its labor, the War De- 
partment had striven to conceal and had refused 
to remedy its inefficiency, blundering, and delay. 
There has been some improvement, and this im- 
provement is due solely to the Senate committee. 

This is the people's war. It is not the President's 
war any more than it is Congress's war. It is Amer- 
ica's war. We are in honor bound in conducting it 
to stand by every official who does well and against 
every official who fails to do well. Any other attitude 
is a servile attitude. Congress on the whole has 
done well. Until Congress finally asserted itself 
the executive branch of the Government did very 
badly. If Congress follows the lead outlined in the 
Chamberlain Bill, it will continue to do well; if it 
follows the lead outlined in Senator Overman's 
Bill, it will condone the inefficiency of the past and 
put a premium upon inefficiency in the future. 
Congress must not shirk its duty to the people. Let 
the machinery of the Government be modernized 
and above all let this machinery be manned by men 
of distinguished and demonstrated ability who will 



THE FRUITS OF FIFTY-FIFTY LOYALTY 109 

make the governmental conduct efficient instead of 
grossly inefficient, as it was during the first year of 
the war. 

Let us quit being content with feeble mediocrity. 
Let us demand really first-class efficiency in both 
preparation and performance. That is the only way 
to do what we must do and see this war through to 
a triumphant conclusion. 



THE FRUITS OF FIFTY-FIFTY LOYALTY 

March 2, 191 8 

A CAPTAIN in the regular army of the United States 
has just been justly sentenced to twenty-five years' 
imprisonment for trying to combine loyalty to this 
country with loyalty to Germany. He was born here 
of German parents. In Germany, for such an of- 
fense, he would have been instantly shot or hung. 
And in Germany organizations and newspapers 
responsible for causing such action would be in- 
stantly suppressed and their organizers and editors 
heavily punished. 

The unfortunate army officer in question is paying 
the penalty for heeding such organizations as the 
German-American Alliance. Mr. Gustavus Ohlinger 
has put before Congress facts concerning the past 
actions and activities of this organization which 
warrant and require its instant suppression. Its 
leaders have sometimes been men who practiced a 
fifty-fifty loyalty between this country and Germany 



no ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

and sometimes men all of whose loyalty was for 
Germany and all whose enmity was for the nation- 
ality, ideals, and language of the American people. 
It is an outrage that such an organization should 
be permitted longer to exist. Congress should act 
against it at once and the Department of Justice 
should abandon its slack attitude toward German 
spies and should so act as to convince our enemies 
that Uncle Sam is not a timid and soft-headed fool, 
and that hereafter German spies, dynamiters, and 
murderers who ply their trade here will do so at the 
risk of their necks. 

Teaching German in the public schools should be 
prohibited. German language newspapers should 
have a time limit act, after which it should not be 
lawful to publish them save in English. A few of 
their newspapers have a most honorable past and 
are doing excellent work in the present. A number 
of Enghsh language newspapers have preached moral 
treason to the American people, often covering it by 
zeal in denouncing all honest and truthful men who 
point out the delays and inefficiencies in govern- 
ment, actions which make those responsible for 
them enemies of the American people and aids to 
Germany; but moral treason in English is at least 
open, whereas in a foreign language it is hidden. 
Moral treason is not necessarily legal treason, but 
it may be as dangerous, and from senators to school 
teachers, all public servants who deal in it should 
promptly be removed from office. 

The organizations, newspapers, and public serv- 



1 



QUIT TALKING PEACE. in 

ants who thus betray the honor of America in the 
interest of Germany wrong all their fellow citizens. 
But above all they cruelly wrong those loyal Ameri- 
cans, the great majority of our citizens who are in 
whole or in part of German blood. The loyal major- 
ity should lend their utmost energies to securing the 
condign and summary punishment of the disloyal 
minority of Americans of German blood who are a 
disgrace and a menace to this country. Gustavus 
Ohlinger is an admirable example of the Americans 
in whole or in part of German blood who is an 
American and nothing else. All good Americans, 
and especially all good Americans of German blood, 
should actively and heartily back him. There is no 
room in this country for fifty-fifty Americanism. 



QUIT TALKING PEACE 

March 5, 1918 

The experience of Trotzky, Lenine, and the other 
Bolshevist leaders in their peace negotiations with 
Germany ought to be illuminating to our own people. 
Germany encouraged them to enter peace negotia- 
tions, spoke fairly to them, got them committed to 
the abandonment of their allies, used them to de- 
moralize Russia and make it impossible for her to 
organize effective resistance, and then threw them 
over, instantly invaded their land, and now holds a 
part of Russia. 

Let our people take warning and insist that all 



112 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

/ peace talk cease forthwith. Germany Is the enemy 
of humanity generally and in a special sense is the 
enemy of the United States. She has introduced 
into warfare horrors which not another civilized 
nation would have dreamed of using. Her conduct 
toward Belgium stands out on the high peak of in- 
famy. She has murdered innocent women and 
children wholesale on the high seas and hundreds of 
Americans have thus been slain. She has organized 
murder, rape, robbery, and devastation on a gigantic 
scale in every conquered territory. Our own sons 
and brothers are at this moment facing death by the 
awful torture of the poison gas because Germany has 
invented methods of warfare more cruel than those 
of the Dark Ages. Peace on equal terms with such 
a foe would mean black shame in the present and the 
certainty of renewed and wholesale war in the future. 
' To talk peace means to puzzle the ignorant and 
to weaken the will of even the stout-hearted. It is 
hailed with evil joy by all the men in this country 
who have opposed war and have wished us to sub- 
mit tamely to German brutality. When there comes 
from Washington an announcement about peace 
terms which the pacifists and pro-Germans are able 
to interpret as favorable to their views, the Hearst 
papers gleefully champion it as undoing the effect of 
previous declarations that we are in this war to the 
end, and Mr. Hillquit, the New York mayoralty can- 
didate of the Germanized Socialists and the pacifists, 
expresses his hearty approval and says that the 
President has now taken his (Mr. Hillquit's) position. 



ENEMIES OF LOYAL AMERICANS 113 

Let us quit talking peace with a foe who, if we 
entered into peace negotiations, would, according to 
his ability, trick us as he has already tricked the 
Bolsheviki of Russia. Let us not put ourselves on 
the moral and intellectual level of Trotzky and 
Lenine. Every peace utterance pleases the Germans, 
renders our allies uneasy, strengthens the pacifists, 
the pro-Germans, and the various seditious elements 
in our own country, and bewilders, disheartens, and 
weakens our honest citizens. 

The time when words about peace were useful 
passed a very long time ago. Let us now merely 
announce that we are in this war to fight until Ger- 
many is beaten to her knees. Then let us bend our 
entire energy to building ships and more ships at the 
greatest possible speed and putting a couple of 
million men on the firing line at the earliest possible 
moment. That is the effective way to bring a just 
and lasting peace. 

THE WORST ENEMIES OF CERTAIN 
LOYAL AMERICANS 

March 10, 191 8 

The army and navy of the United States in the 
training camps, on the high seas, and at the battle 
front, are at this moment proving themselves the 
most potent agencies of Americanism that our 
country contains. All good Americans should feel a 
peculiar pride in the fine and gallant loyalty with 
which the great majority of the Americans of Ger- 



114 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

man descent have come forward to do their part to 
win this war against the brutal and merciless tyr- 
anny of the Prussianized Germany of the Hohen- 
zollerns. As regards able-bodied men, this service 
must be rendered in the army, for in war-time no 
other form of activity can be accepted as a substitute 
for the fighting work of the fighting man. 

I continually meet officers from the front. A cap- 
tain recently out of the trenches called on me the 
other day. His father and mother were born in 
Germany. He himself, after going through a small 
American college, had spent three years at Heidel- 
berg. He mentioned that one of his lieutenants was 
born in Norway, and that another was of Irish 
parentage, and then continued by saying that al- 
ready his brief experience of the war had given him 
a horror of the Germany of to-day, had convinced 
him that our only safety lay in the complete Ameri- 
canization of all our people and therefore in the in- 
sistence that English should be the only language of 
this country and the only language taught in any 
primary school, and that he regarded such organiza- 
tions as the German-American Alliance as guilty of 
moral treason to America as the worst and most 
dangerous foes of good Americans of German blood, 
and as richly deserving to be promptly suppressed 
and punished. 

An officer from our destroyer squadron across the 
seas informed me that our destroyers had "accounted 
for nearly a score of submarines; that about a 
quarter of their crews were, as indicated by their 



GIRD UP OUR LOINS 115 

names, of German descent, but straight-out Ameri- 
cans and nothing else; that his own best gun-pointer 
was named Fritz Heinz ; and that their keenest indig- 
nation was reserved for the German officials in Ger- 
many and the German-American Alliance in America 
whose actions tended to make a wall between them 
and their fellow Americans and who inflicted the 
most cruel wrong possible upon them by exciting 
among other Americans an indiscriminate distrust 
and anger toward all men of German origin. 

These men were absolutely right. We speak in the 
name of all good Americans and on behalf of Fritz 
and Adolph and Gustav exactly as on behalf of Bill 
and Harry and Edward, when we demand the 
prompt suppression of the German-American Alli- 
ance and of all similar organizations. The German 
blood is exactly as good as any other blood, but ex- 
actly as, under the corroding influence of slavery, 
masses of Americans of the best blood once became 
the enemies of the Union and of humanity, so under 
the debasing and brutalizing influence of the kultur 
of the last fifty years, Germany has become the cruel 
and treacherous enemy of the United States and of 
all the other liberty-loving nations of mankind. 

GIRD UP OUR LOINS 
March 16, 1918 

The Bible warns us to gird up our loins if we wish to 
win a race. Most certainly we cannot expect to do 
well in the present struggle unless we bend every 



ii6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

energy to the task and exercise all our forethought 
in instant preparation. 

Russia's betrayal of the Allied cause under the 
foolish and iniquitous lead of the Bolsheviki has been 
a betrayal of the United States and of the cause of 
liberty and democracy and justice throughout the 
world. Above all, it has been a betrayal of Russia 
herself, and it has, of course, absolved us of every 
obligation to her. Our duty is to stand by England 
and France and Belgium and Serbia, who have stood 
by us. Russia has ruined herself in Germany's in- 
terest, and has immensely increased the peril for the 
rest of us. This simply means that we ought to re- 
double our effort. We should be building the cargo 
ships in three eight-hour shift days and should treat 
work on them as being equivalent to work in the 
army. We should speed to the utmost the work on 
the cannon and flying machines so that our army 
may cease having to rely on the French for artillery 
.and airplanes. The army should copy the wisdom 
of the navy in regard to the Lewis auto rifle and 
should use this weapon to the utmost limit now, even 
although it prove wise later to supersede it with the 
Browning weapon. 

We ought at once to introduce obligatory uni- 
versal military training for our young men between 
nineteen and twenty-one. They would not be sent 
to war until they were twenty-one. This would be 
the most effective step in preparing to get ready an 
army of five million men. Such an army would be 
relatively no larger than the four hundred thousand 



BOLSHEVIKI AT HOME AND ABROAD 117 

men which gallant Canada, to her eternal honor, has 
already raised. Let us begin now to prepare our- 
selves for a three years' war. 

If we had prepared as we ought to have done dur- 
ing the two and a half years before we at last reluc- 
tantly faced our duty and went to war, we would 
have put a couple of million of fighting men into 
Europe last June. Russia would never have broken, 
and in all probability the war would have ended at 
once with almost no fighting. There is no use in 
crying over the enormous quantities of milk we have 
already spilled, unless it becomes necessary in order 
to prevent us from continuing to spill it in the 
present and future. Failure to prepare as above out- 
lined may cause us as much trouble in the future as 
our past failure to prepare has already caused us. 
General Pershing's gallant little army has already 
made the entire United States its debtor. But it is 
not as yet as important a military factor as the army 
of Belgium or of Portugal or of Serbia. Let us back 
it up and equip it and reenforce it to the utmost of 
our strength. Let us quit talking peace and bend 
all our energies to winning the war, and thereby 
winning the only kind of peace that will be safe, 
honorable, and lasting. 

BOLSHEVIKI AT HOME AND ABROAD 
March 19, 191 8 

The answer of the Bolsheviki to the President's 
message was an example of mean and studied im- 



ii8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

pertinence. There was no gratitude, no apology for 
their betrayal of America and of the cause of liberty, 
and no expression of hostility to their German 
masters, but there was a gratuitous and insulting 
expression for a class war in America against what 
the Bolsheviki with ignorant folly speak of as 
capitalism. A couple of days afterward the Bol- 
shevist authorities definitely concluded with Ger- 
many their peace of ignominy and treachery. 

There is now no possible reason for our Govern- 
ment to draw the sharp distinction they have drawn 
between the Bolsheviki abroad and the Bolsheviki 
at home. The Government is prosecuting Victor 
Berger and has suppressed the paper of Max East- 
man. But Berger and Eastman are essentially the 
same as Lenine and Trotzky. All four have played 
Germany's game ; all four have been the enemies of 
the cause of the United States and of liberty. The 
utter ruin which the Bolsheviki have brought on 
Russia offers an illuminating example of the destruc- 
tion which would befall the United States if it ever 
submitted to the leadership of men like Messrs. 
Hillquit, Townley, Haywood, and Berger. 

We have had many evil capitalists in the United 
States, but on the whole the worst capitalists could 
not do the permanent damage to the farmers and 
working-men in America which these foreign and 
native Bolsheviki would do if they had the power. 
Our people should keep steadily in mind that the 
Russian Bolsheviki have not attacked the big Rus- 
sian capitalists who were in alliance with the autoc- 



BOLSHEVIKI AT HOME AND ABROAD 119 

racy of the Romanoffs and they have been the tools, 
paid or unpaid, of the German militarists and capi- 
talists. They have spent their energies in attacking 
the revolutionists who overthrew the Romanoffs and 
in persecuting the peasants who have become small 
farmers and the working-men who are skilled me- 
chanics and the small shopkeepers. They hate and 
envy those thrifty and self-respecting workers who 
in this country make up the great majority of our 
people and who are our most typical and character- 
istic Americans. 

The Bolsheviki have concluded a peace with 
Germany which includes handing back to the Turks, 
or, in other words, plunging back into brutal sav- 
agery, a district in Asia in which there are multitudes 
of Armenians and other Christians. Our Govern- 
ment has been derelict in its duty to the Armenians, 
to the Christians of Syria and to the Jews of Pales- 
tine, by its failure to declare war on Turkey. It is a 
grave error to coddle the Bolsheviki and support 
them in any way against our allies unless we are 
also willing fearlessly to condemn their betrayal of 
us and of the Allied cause, and unless we are ready 
to w^ar to the end against both Germany and Turkey 
in order to rescue from tyranny and to give inde- 
pendence to the unfortunate people whom the Bol- 
sheviki have abandoned to a cruel fate. 



120 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

THE FRUITS OF OUR DELAY 

March 26, 1918 

The shameful betrayal of the Allies' cause by the 
Russian Bolshevists and the delay and incompetence 
of the American Government have given the Ger- 
mans a free hand for their drive against the British 
army. England is at this moment fighting our 
battles just as much as she is fighting her own, yet, 
although three years have passed since the Lusitania 
was sunk and a year since Congress declared that we 
had " formally " entered the war, America is still 
merely an onlooker. 

We owe this ignoble position to the folly and the 
procrastination of our Government and its inveter- 
ate tendency to substitute rhetoric for action. We 
have a gallant little army across the ocean, but it is 
smaller than the Belgian army. We are not holding 
a greater extent of the battle front than the army of 
little Portugal. We have at the front no airplanes 
or field artillery and very few machine guns except 
those we have gotten from the French. Even the 
clothes of our troops are mainly obtained from the 
English. Yet we are the richest nation and one of the 
most populous nations on the earth. 

Our Government is responsible for our dreadful 
shortcomings, but the responsibility is shared by all 
the foolish creatures who have willfully blinded 
themselves to these shortcomings and have clamored 
against the faithful public servants, like Senator 



THE FRUITS OF OUR DELAY 121 

Chamberlain, who laid bare the shortcomings for the 
purpose of remedying them. The truly patriotic men 
in this crisis have been the men who have fearlessly 
told the truth in order to speed up the war. The 
other men who have decried the truth-telling as 
" crying over spilt milk " have been profoundly un- 
patriotic. It was the failure to point out how much 
milk had been spilt which was primarily responsible 
for the failure to stop further spilling of milk. 

In the face of the terrible battle which our English 
allies are now waging, and in view of the fact that 
for three years and a half we have owed our safety to 
the British fleet and to the French spirit typified by 
Premier Clemenceau, let the American people now 
demand that the Government recognize the need of 
instant and efiiclent action. Let our Government 
quit flirting with the Bolshevists at home and 
abroad. Let it declare war on Turkey at once. Let 
it acknowledge its dreadful failures and delays and 
henceforth act with all possible speed. Let it man- 
fully endeavor to make our weight felt in the war 
this year. Let it stop boasting about the future and 
begin to act In the present. 

Let the Government use common sense. It has 
talked magnificently about having twenty thousand 
airplanes ready in June, but it has not one American 
war plane at the front to-day. Let it quit boasting 
and act. Let It push the shipping programme by 
night and day. Let It give France and England the 
men they so sorely need. 

Our Government has delayed until the Allies have 



122 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

been brought to the brink of destruction. Let it act 
at once lest the chance for action pass completely by. 



HOW THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE 

March 31, 1918 

THE CURSE OF THE SYSTEM 

By D. Thomas Curtin 

I 

A SCENE in Schabatz, when the Austro-Hungarians attempted 
to flank Belgrade in early August, 1914, has seared itself into 
my memory. I was in the shambles of an overgrown village. 
The blood of both armies flowed in the streets and the wine 
from broken casks and bottles flowed in the cellars, soldiers 
walking in it up to their knees. 

The street was deserted save for an Unteroffizier who was 
passing. An old woman, bent and shriveled, her white locks 
escaping the yellow sash around her head, tottered from a 
whitewashed mixture of mud and thatch, saw the enemy 
soldier, started back, thought better of it, and sank to her 
knees while she extended her bony arms for mercy. He drew 
his saber — still a relic of war. "A little despicable stage 
play and magnanimous pardon," I thought. I was mistaken. 
The saber whistled and slashed the outstretched arms, the 
woman's shriek cut me like saws and knives, and I turned 
away bewildered. 

I came face to face with the man a few minutes later. He 
was not drunk. Nor did he look like a wild man from the hills. 
He was a Viennese, the kind of man I had seen on scores of 
occasions lolling in a cafe, mild and gentle as a kitten. He 
looked mild and gentle now. 

"Why did you do it? " I had to ask. 

" She was a pig-dog Serb, an enemy of my country. I 
did my duty." And he said it in a manner which showed him 
satisfied in his conscience that he had done what was right. 

I realize now that I had had my first war-time example of 
the German system of education. The code is that anything 



HOW THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE 123 

done in the name of the Fatherland is correct. A man can be 
educated in such a manner that he will wipe out " crawling 
verminous pests of his country " with as little compunction 
as a farmer would rid his field of potato bugs. 

II 

On Thanksgiving Day, 1914, I visited the American 
Hospital in Munich, a military hospital supported by contri- 
butions from the United States. While talking with three 
men in one room I was actually saying to myself that such as 
these could not be guilty of atrocities, when one of them told 
me a story which forced me to change my mind. 

" I was a member of a relief company marching in the 
Vosges," he said. "As we were about to halt for lunch, we 
came upon a French priest in a wood who was judged quickly 
to be a spy by our officers. These turned him over to us and 
we had great amusement after we had finished eating. I laugh 
still whenever I think of it. We tied a rope around his neck 
and threw it over a limb of a tree. Some comrades pulled 
and up went the priest while the rest of us stood around and 
jabbed him with our bayonets. * Higher, higher! ' we shouted. 
And then we had a jumping contest to see which could thrust 
his bayonet highest." 

The man told me the story because he thought it funny 
and his eyes danced with happy recollections as he told it. 

NO GUNS 

General Petain, commander, French army, said: " Send guns; so that 
some of us may be alive to fight by your side, when at last America is ready." 

What! in France and no guns! 
Have I sent forth my sons 
With proud boasts of great deeds — 
And fallen down at plain needs? 
Who proclaimed to the world 
With my banners unfurled 
The dread foe will succumb, 
I, America, come! 

In France, and no guns! 
And I 've sent forth my sons 



V 



124 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

With those wolves of the Huns at their throats, 
While the Kaiser and Hindenburg gloat, 
And France, stricken France, 
Fills the breach, while my lance 
I sent flaming with pride 
Hangs behind, not beside! 

In France! and no guns, 

Empty hands, and my sons 

Who would tear out their hearts for my fame, 

Are held up to derision and shame, 

Because statesmen so small 

Hew out roads to a wall 

While the fire bells of death 

Crash souls out, and breath' 

In France, and no guns! 

Why, you 're worse than the Huns, 

You men who are shaming my honor 

When the stress of the Nation 's upon her. 

With your quibbles and greed 

Can the trampled be freed? 

Oh, my heart 's sick with scorn, 

I, America, suborned. 

In France, and no guns! 

Let's forever be done 

With our boasts and our brags, and succumb 

To the scorning before which we're dumb. 

When at last France is free 

And her glory acclaimed 

Let none look at me, 

At America, shamed. 

Henrietta Keith, Minneapolis 



We live such sheltered lives here, three thousand 
miles away from the war, that most of us don't even 
yet realize what Germany has done and has stood 



HOW THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE 125 

for in this war and what a terrible menace she is to 
us and to all civilization. The other day I met a very 
able writer and observer who at the outbreak of the 
Great War spent many months with the German and 
Austrian armies and then lived in Germany until it 
became impossible for a self-respecting American 
longer to stay there. He is Mr. D. Thomas Curtin. 
His father was born in Ireland. He is himself a 
Catholic. I mention these facts merely because they 
refute the cheap and vicious falsehoods so often pro- 
mulgated by the pro-Germans to the effect that the 
accounts of the German atrocities are due to English 
propaganda. 

I ask all good Americans, whatever their creed, 
and I especially ask American women, to read these 
two straight-forward statements by Mr. Curtin, the 
account of the killing by torture of the priest who 
fell into the hands of the German soldiers and the 
account of the fearful brutality of an Austrian Ger- 
man to a poor old woman. These were not isolated 
cases of brutality. They were both part of the policy 
of deliberate horror, which Mr. Curtin speaks of as 
" the system." All in America who have played the 
game of Germany, from Hearst and the Germanized 
Socialists and the German-American Alliance at one 
end of the line to foolish pacifist preachers at the 
other end of the line, have been, according to their 
power, working to bring about the day when we 
here in this country would see our own women and 
helpless non-combatant men and our own children 
exposed to such hideous wrongs and torture as is 



126 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

described by Mr. Curtin. I very seriously ask our 
people to read what Mr. Curtin says and to ponder 
the full meaning of the facts he sets forth. 

In the next place, I ask them to read the poem — 
and it is a real poem, not merely verse — of Mrs. 
Keith, a Minneapolis woman, called " No Guns." 
Well-meaning, foolish people, and some people who 
in ordinary relations of life are not foolish, are fond 
of telling us not to point out the defects in the army, 
because this encourages Germany, and because any- 
how it is a case of spilt milk, and there is no use of 
crying over spilt milk. The answer is twofold. In 
the first place, Germany knows all our shortcomings. 
Inasmuch as we have wuckedly refused to go to war 
with Turkey and Bulgaria, we have left open ave- 
nues by which it is absolutely certain that Germany 
gets full knowledge of everything she wishes to know 
about this country. It is only our own people who 
are kept in ignorance. In the next place, as regards 
the spilt-milk proposition, the trouble is that we 
have kept on spilling the milk and that only by 
pointing out that it has been spilled is it possible to 
solder the milk cans and stop further spilling. Until 
Senator Chamberlain and his committee boldly and 
truthfully pointed out the evil caused by the delays 
and shortcomings of the War Department, the Ad- 
ministration made not the slightest effort to remedy 
them. Some of the more salient of these shortcom- 
ings have been remedied, and this fact is primarily 
due to the courage and patriotism of these public 
servants, Senator Chamberlain and his committee. 



HOW THE HUN EARNS HIS TITLE 127 

If fourteen months ago our people had been willing 
to demand the truth and to listen to those who told 
the truth, we would at this moment have four times 
the force we now have in France; and we would have 
guns and airplanes, and auto rifles of our own make 
with it; and we would have had plenty of ships to 
carry our men across and to give them food and 
munitions. The reason why our fighting army at the 
front in France is no larger, and the reason why we 
have had to get the necessary field guns, airplanes, 
and auto rifles for that army from the French, is be- 
cause we, as a people, were not willing to insist upon 
knowing the truth. It is precisely because certain 
men are now telling the truth that there is reason to 
hope that gradually the milk spilling will be stopped; 
that gradually we shall get the guns, the airplanes, 
and auto rifles for our men, and above all the ships 
that are vitally necessary. I ask the mothers of this 
country whose sons are now in the army, or may go 
into the army, to read and ponder this poem by a 
woman, and to cast the weight of their great influ- 
ence in favor of demanding that every ounce of 
energy we as a Nation possess be used to speed up 
the war, to relieve our allies of the burden of supply- 
ing us with weapons of war, and to see that the 
American troops abroad are furnished from this 
country with American-made weapons of the highest 
type. 

The don't-cry-over-spilt-milk appeal represents 
unpardonable wrong to America and to civilization. 



128 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

THANK HEAVEN! 

April 2, 191 8 

At last, thank Heaven, comes the news that our 
little American army at the front has been put ab- 
solutely at the disposal of the French and English 
military leaders for use of any kind in the gigantic 
and terrible battle now being waged. All Americans 
who are proud of the great name of America will 
humbly and reverently thank Heaven that at any 
rate the army we have at the front is not to remain in 
the position of an onlooker, but is to be put into the 
battle. 

The wanton and cruel bombardment of Paris, 
undertaken for no military reason and with its char- 
acteristic slaughter of women and children in a 
church, proves that the German barbarity is as de- 
liberate and as infamous now as at the beginning of 
the war. The Allies in this battle are fighting for 
humanity and civilization. They are fighting the 
battle of the United States. Any man in the United 
States who at this time directly or indirectly ex- 
presses approval of or sympathy with Germany in 
this battle or in this war, should be arrested and 
either shot, hung, or imprisoned for life, according 
to the gravity of his offense. 

Thank Heaven that our sons and brothers are 
now to stand at Armageddon. Thank Heaven that 
American soldiers are now to fight in the great battle 
against the bestial foe of America and of mankind. 



CITIZENS OR SUBJECTS? 129 

Words count for little at this time and for nothing 
whatever except in so far as they are of help to the 
men of deeds who are at the front. 

It is these men at the front who are now mak- 
ing all Americans, born and unborn, forever their 
debtors. They are the men who have paid with 
their bodies for their soul's desire. Let no one pity 
them, whatever their fate, for they have seen the 
mighty days and have risen level to the need of che 
mighty days. And let no one pity the wives and 
mothers and fathers whose husbands and lovers and 
sons now face death in battle for the mightiest of 
all high causes. Our hearts are wrung with sorrow 
and anxiety, but our heads are held aloft with pride. 
It is a terrible thing that our loved ones should face 
the great danger, but it would be a far more terrible 
thing if, whatever the danger, they were not treading 
the hard path of duty and honor. 



CITIZENS OR SUBJECTS? 
April 6, 191 8 

In a self-governing country the people are called 
citizens. Under a despotism or autocracy the people 
are called subjects. This is because in a free country 
the people are themselves sovereign,. while in a des- 
potic country the people are under a sovereign. In 
the United States the people are all citizens, includ- 
ing its President. The rest of them are fellow citizens 
of the President. In Germany the people are all 



130 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

subjects of the Kaiser. They are not his fellow citi- 
zens, they are his subjects. This is the essential 
difference between the United States and Germany, 
but the difference would vanish if we now submitted 
to the foolish or traitorous persons who endeavor to 
make it a crime to tell the truth about the Adminis- 
tration when the Administration is guilty of incom- 
petence or other shortcomings. Such endeavor is 
itself a crime against the Nation. Those who take 
such an attitude are guilty of moral treason of a kind 
both abject and dangerous. 

Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. 
It is due to the President only and exactly to the 
degree in which he efficiently serves the United 
States. It is our duty to support him when he serves 
the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him 
when he serves it badly. This is true about Mr. Wil- 
son now and it has been true about all our presidents 
in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the 
truth about the President and about every one else, 
save in the cases where to tell the truth at the mo- 
ment would benefit the public enemy. Since this 
war began, the suppression of the truth by and about 
the Administration has been habitual. In rare cases 
this has been disadvantageous to the enemy. In the 
vast majority of cases it has been advantageous to 
the enemy, detrimental to the American people, and 
useful to the Administration only from the political, 
not the patriotic, standpoint. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee has just rec- 
ommended the passage of a law in which, among 



CITIZENS OR SUBJECTS? 131 

many excellent propositions to put down disloyalty, 
there has been adroitly inserted a provision that any 
one who uses " contemptuous or slurring language 
about the President " shall be punished by imprison- 
ment for a long term of years and by a fine of many 
thousand dollars. This proposed law is sheer treason 
to the United States. Under its terms Abraham 
Lincoln would have been sent to prison for what he 
repeatedly said of Presidents Polk, Pierce, and Bu- 
chanan. Under its terms President Wilson would be 
free to speak of Senator-elect Lenroot as he has 
spoken, but Senator Lenroot would not be free 
truthfully to answer President Wilson. It is a pro- 
posal to make Americans subjects instead of citizens. 
It is a proposal to put the President in the position 
of the Hohenzollerns and Romanoffs. Government 
by the people means that the people have the right 
to do their own thinking and to do their own speak- 
ing about their public servants. They must speak 
truthfully and they must not be disloyal to the 
country, and it is their highest duty by truthful 
criticism to make and keep the public servants loyal 
to the country. 

Any truthful criticism could and would be held 
by partisanship to be slurring or contemptuous. The 
Delaware House of Representatives has just shown 
this. It came within one vote of passing a resolution 
demanding that the Department of Justice proceed 
against me because, in my recent speeches in Maine, 
I " severely criticized the conduct of our National 
Government." I defy any human being to point 



132 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

out a statement in that speech which was not true 
and which was not patriotic, and yet the decent and 
patriotic members of the Delaware legislature were 
only able to secure a majority of one against the base 
and servile partisanship of those who upheld the 
resolution. 

I believe the proposed law is unconstitutional. 
If it is passed, I shall certainly give the Government 
the opportunity to test its constitutionality. For 
whenever the need arises I shall in the future speak 
truthfully of the President in praise or in blame, 
exactly as I have done in the past. When the Presi- 
dent in the past uttered his statements about being 
too proud to fight and wishing peace without victory, 
and considering that we had no special grievance 
against Germany, I spoke of him as it was my high 
duty to speak. Therefore, I spoke of him truthfully 
and severely, and I cared nothing whether or not 
timid and unpatriotic and short-sighted men said 
that I spoke slurringly or contemptuously. In as far 
as the President in the future endeavors to wage this 
war efficiently and to secure the peace of overwhelm- 
ing victory, I shall heartily support him. But if he 
wages it inefficiently or if he should now champion a 
peace without victory, or say that -we had no griev- 
ance against Germany, I would speak in criticism 
of him precisely as I have spoken in the past. I am 
an American and a free man. My loyalty is due to 
the United States, and therefore it is due to the Pres- 
ident, the Senators, the Congressmen, and all other 
public servants only and to the degree in which they 
loyally and efficiently serve the United States. 



WOMEN AND THE WAR 133 



WOMEN AND THE WAR 

April 12, 191 8 

A Kansas woman has just written me in part as 
follows: " I have given my all, my two sons, gladly 
and proudly, as volunteers to my country, for they 
enlisted last August. But my heart grows sick at 
the confusion and blunders and apathy. I thank The 
Star for printing that poem of the Minnesota 
mother. It appeals to all of us mothers who stay at 
home and pray and work as we can." 

I think more continually of such mothers of 
soldiers as this Kansas woman, than I do even of the 
soldiers themselves. They have high and gallant 
souls. They are the spiritual heirs of the mothers 
and wives of Washington's Continentals and of the 
mothers and wives of the soldiers of Grant and Lee. 
I am proud beyond measure that I am their fellow 
countryman. In everything that I do or say, I seek 
to make and to keep this land a land in which their 
daughters can dwell in honorable safety and to make 
our common citizenship such that both their sons 
and daughters shall hold their heads high because 
they are Americans. 

But exactly as I revere such women, so I condemn 
the women whose short-sightedness or frivolous love 
of ease and vapid pleasure or whose timid fear of 
danger and labor makes them fit companions for 
those unworthy men whose lives represent merely 
the shirking of duty. The mother who, by perpetual 



134 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

complaint and lamentation about unavoidable hard- 
ships and risks, seeks to weaken the heart of her 
soldier son stands no higher than the money-getting 
or ease-loving man who dodges the draft. The 
woman who cares so little for the honor of America 
and the interests of civilization as now to wish a 
peace without victory is no better than the men in 
uniform who seek soft positions of safety among the 
slickers and slackers. 

The things that are best worth having in life must 
be paid for whether by forethought or by toil or by 
downright facing of danger. This is true in peace. 
It is even more true in war. It is just as true of 
women as of men. 

All wise and good women and all wise and good 
men abhor war. Washington and Lincoln abhorred 
war. But no man or woman is either wise or good 
unless he or she abhors some things even more than 
war, exactly as Washington and Lincoln abhorred 
them. We are none of us fit to be free men in a re- 
public if we are not willing to fight when the Re- 
public is wronged as Germany has wronged this 
country. We are none of us entitled to say that we 
love mankind if we are not willing to do battle 
against the Turk and the German in order to right 
such wrongs as have been perpetrated on Belgium 
and Armenia. And we deserve to be brayed in a 
mortar if we are ever again guilty of such folly as 
that of which we have been guilty by our foolish 
failure to prepare our strength in efficient fashion 
during the last three and a half years. 



TO AMERICANS OF GERMAN BLOOD 135 

The women of this country who love their hus- 
bands and sons should realize now that only by 
thorough preparedness in advance can war be 
avoided, if possible, or successfully waged if it has to 
come. Recently men in high position whose own 
bodies are safe have stated that they are glad that 
we were not prepared in advance to do our duty 
when this war came. These men have purchased 
their own safety and advantage by the blood of our 
sons at the front. Let the women who do not wish 
to see their men go up against the cannon see that 
hereafter all our sons are well trained in advance. 
If America's strength is fully prepared in advance, 
she will in all probability never have to go to war 
and will be a potent factor in preserving the peace 
of justice throughout the world, and the first step 
in securing such a peace is to devote all our energies 
to speeding up the war until it is ended by the com- 
plete triumph of our allies and ourselves. 

TO MY FELLOW AMERICANS OF 
GERMAN BLOOD 

April 16, 191 8 

Hermann Hagedorn, an American whose father 
and mother were born in Germany, an American of 
the best and bravest and most loyal type, has just 
written a little book called " Where Do You Stand? 
An Appeal to Americans of German Origin." I wish 
it could be read by every individual of those to whom 
it is addressed, and by all other Americans also. 



136 ■ ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

I am, myself, partly of German blood, and I make 
my appeal as an American does, to and on behalf of 
all other Americans who have German blood in their 
veins. We have room in this country only for Amer- 
icans who are Americans, and nothing else. They 
must be loyal to only one flag; they must speak one 
language; they must serve only American ideals. I 
mean literally what I say, that every man who bears 
even the smallest allegiance to any other country 
should be sent out of this country. The native 
American who, during this war, directly or in- 
directly, assails any of our allies, notably England, 
but also Japan, is a traitor to America and should be 
promptly imprisoned. The German-American, and 
especially the German-American editor, guilty of 
such conduct or of any exaltation of any German 
victory should be instantly interned and then sent 
back to Germany. The Sinn Feiner who attacks 
England should be immediately interned and then 
sent back to Ireland. The German-American Alli- 
ance and all similar organizations should immedi- 
ately be broken up by Congress and by the state 
legislatures. Our people would do well to remember 
that even when such organizations keep quiet for 
the moment, they are certain to revive and to work 
against America with the utmost malignity when 
peace comes. The time to crush them is now. Foreign 
language newspapers should be required to follow 
the example of the New York Herold and begin 
the change, which is to convert their newspapers 
into English, the language of the United States, 



TO AMERICANS OF GERMAN BLOOD 137 

As for spies, preachers of sedition, men who prac- 
tice sabotage, and all other such persons, the 
Government already has much power, but should 
be given any needed additional power to proceed 
against them, and this power should be used in 
drastic fashion, if necessary under martial law, and 
after a summary trial the guilty men should be shot. 

So much for the men of German blood, or of any 
other blood, who are not good Americans; but re- 
member that it is also our highest duty from the 
standpoint of Americanism to stand by the good 
American of German blood, just exactly as we stand 
by any other American. We must refuse to permit 
any division along the lines of blood or ancestry. We 
must demand whole-hearted Americanism, and if a 
man gives this, we must treat him exactly on his 
merits, like any other American. In other words, we 
must give every man a square deal. Shoot the spy or 
the traitor, whether of native American, Irish, or 
German blood; whether a Protestant, Catholic, or 
Jew. Stand by the good American of any creed, no 
matter where he was born or whence his parents 
came. 

It is an outrage to discriminate against a good 
American in civil life because he is of German blood. 
It is an even worse outrage for the Government to 
permit such discrimination against him in the army 
or in any of the organizations working under govern- 
ment supervision. Let us insist on the immediate 
stopping of such discriminations, which cruelly 
wound good Americans and tend to drive them back 



138 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

into the ranks of the half-loyal. In return let good 
Americans of German blood band together and take 
the lead in organization action against all disloyal 
or half-loyal citizens of German blood and against 
all German language or English language newspa- 
pers which are not whole-heartedly loyal and against 
all such organizations as the German-Americaa 
Alliance. 



AN EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT 
IN HUMAN UPBUILDING 

April 17, 191 8 

Major E. C. Simmons, of St. Louis, the manager of 
the Southwestern Division of the American Red 
Cross, has just returned from our army in France. 
He relates a really extraordinary achievement of the 
division of orthopaedic surgery with the army under 
the direction of Surgeon-Major Joel E. Goldthwaite. 

All the divisions of troops sent across, of course, 
contain a number of men who show physical short- 
comings under the strain of actual campaigning. In 
General Edwards's division these men numbered in 
the neighborhood of fifteen per cent, not an unusual 
proportion in the history of past wars. Dr. Gold- 
thwaite got permission to try his hand on the treat- 
ment of a body composed of somewhat over five 
hundred of them, and instantly began vigorous but 
careful work to build up all their physical defects. 

As his work for each man was finished, he was put 



AN EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT 139 

in one of four classes. Class A included those to 
whom the training gave such vigor that they were 
fit to go right to the front as battle units. Class B 
included those who could be made fit for hard physi- 
cal labor back of the front, although not for the 
tremendous strain of the trenches. Class C included 
those fitted for clerical and similar duties. Class D 
included those whose physical condition would not 
be improved and who had to be sent home. 

Dr. Goldthwaite was able to place over eighty per 
cent of the men in Class A, and all the remainder in 
either Class B or Class C. Not a man had to be sent 
home. Remember that the physical shortcomings of 
these men were all present before they entered the 
army and were not acquired in the army. The work 
done for them made them not only fit to be soldiers, 
but fit to be citizens. Moreover, it affected them 
morally exactly as much as physically. They had 
become utterly dispirited and downcast. After Dr. 
Goldthwaite was through with them, they were all 
self-reliant, energetic Americans, vigorous, upstand- 
ing, and self-respecting, having lost all trace of 
either moral or physical crooked back and stooping 
shoulders. 

When we get universal obligatory military train- 
ing for all our young men, this is what will happen 
everywhere and the benefit to our people will be 
incalculable. Such training will minimize the chance 
of our ever having to go to war and will render it 
certain that hereafter we shall always be able to de- 
fend ourselves instead of trusting to our allies to 



140 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

defend us. Moreover, it will do us even more good 
as regards the tasks of peace than as regards the 
tasks of war, for it will turn out every young man far 
better able to earn his living and far better fitted to 
be a good citizen. 



FREEDOM STANDS WITH HER BACK 
TO THE WALL 

April 20, 191 8 

This is a terrible hour of trial and suffering and 
danger for our war-worn allies, who in France are 
battling for us no less than for themselves. If shame 
is even more dreadful than suffering, then it is a no 
less terrible hour for our own country. Our allies 
stand with their backs to the wall in the fight for 
freedom, and America looks on. The free nations 
stand at bay in the cause that is ours no less than 
theirs; and after over a year of war the army we 
have sent to their aid is smaller than that of poor 
heroic, ruined Belgium, is hardly more than a 
twentieth the size which gallant and impoverished 
Italy has in the field. And this great wealthy Nation 
of ours has not yet furnished to our own brave troops 
in the field any cannon or airplanes, and almost no 
machine guns, save those which we have obtained 
from hard-pressed France — and let our people 
remember that every gun thus made for us by hard- 
pressed France is a gun left unmade for hard-pressed 
Italy. 



FREEDOM WITH BACK TO THE WALL 141 

Our few gallant fighting men overseas have won 
high honor for themselves, and have made all other 
Americans forever their debtors; but it is a scandal 
and a reproach to this Nation that they are so few. 
If in this mighty battle our allies win, it will be due 
to no real aid of ours; and if they should fail, black 
infamy would be our portion because of the delay 
and the folly and the weakness and the cold, time- 
serving timidity of our Government, to which this 
failure would be primarily due. If those responsible 
for our failure, if those responsible for the refusal to 
prepare during the two and a half years in which we 
were vouchsafed such warning as never nation pre- 
viously received, if those responsible for the sluggish 
feebleness with which we have acted since we help- 
lessly drifted into the war — if these men now re- 
pented of the cruel wrong they have done this Na- 
tion and mankind, we could afford to wrap their 
past folly and evil-doing in the kindly mantle of 
oblivion. But they boast of their foolishness, they 
excuse and justify it, they announce that they feel 
pride and delight in contemplating it. Therefore, 
it is for us, the people, to bow our heads on this our 
penitential day; for we are laggards in the battle, 
we have let others fight in our quarrel, we have let 
others pay with their shattered bodies for the fire in 
their burning souls. 

The trumpets of the Lord sounded for Armaged- 
don; but our hearts were not swift to answer nor 
our feet jubilant; coldly we watched others die that 
we might live. Our rulers were supple and adroit, 



V 



142 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

but they were not mighty of soul. They have shown 
that they will not lead us, and will ever stand in 
front only if we force them forward. Therefore, the 
reason is all the greater why we, the American 
people, must search our own hearts and with un- 
flinching will insist that from now on not a day, not 
an hour, shall be wasted until our giant but soft and 
lazy strength is hardened, until we ourselves take 
the burden from the shoulders of others, until we pay 
whatever price our past shortcomings demand, and 
with heads uplifted and spirit undaunted stride 
forward to the great goal of the peace of victorious 
right. 

A SQUARE DEAL FOR ALL AMERICANS 

April 27, 1918 

There Is no room in this country for the man who 
tries to be both an American and something else. 
There can be no such thing as a fifty-fifty loyalty 
between America and Germany. Either a man is 
whole-hearted in his support of America and her 
allie-s, and in his hostility to Germany and her allies, 
or he is not loyal to America at all. In such case he 
should be at once interned or sent out of the country. 
But if he is whole-hearted in his loyal support of 
America, then no matter what his birthplace or 
parentage he is entitled to stand on a full and exact 
equality with every other American. 

Therefore the obligation is twofold, and one side 
is just as important as the other. Every American 



A SQUARE DEAL FOR ALL AMERICANS 143 

of German birth or parentage must act as an Ameri- 
can and nothing else, and if he does not so act he 
should be treated as an alien enemy. But if he acts 
exactly as other good Americans act, then it is a 
shame and a disgrace not to treat him absolutely 
like these other good Americans. The immense 
majority of Americans who are in whole or in part of 
German blood are as stanch Americans as are to be 
found in the land. They are serving in our armies 
precisely as other Americans serve. They are ex- 
actly as fit as any other American to fill the highest 
positions anywhere in our armies or in civil life. 
Any discrimination against them, active or passive, 
military or political, social or industrial, is an in- 
tolerable outrage. Moreover, such a discrimination 
is itself profoundly anti-American in its effects, for 
it not only cruelly wounds brave and upright and 
loyal Americans, but tends to drive them back 
into segregation, away from the mass of American 
citizenship. 

America is a Nation and not a mosaic of nation- 
alities. The various nationalities that come here are 
not to remain separate, but to blend into the one 
American nationality — the nationality of Washing- 
ton and Lincoln, of Muhlenberg and Sheridan. There- 
fore, we must have but one language, the English 
language. Every immigrant who comes here should 
be required within five years to learn English or to 
leave the country, for hereafter every immigrant 
should be treated as a future fellow citizen and not 
merely as a labor unit. English should be the only 



144 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

language taught or used In the primary schools. We 
should provide by law so that after a reasonable 
interval every newspaper in this country should be 
published in English. 

A square deal for all Americans means relentless 
attack on all men in this country who are not 
straight-out Americans and nothing else. It just as 
emphatically means to stand by every good Ameri- 
can of German blood exactly as much as by every 
other good American. In every loyalty organization 
a special effort should be made to see that in the 
leadership and in the ranks the Americans of German 
blood come in on precisely the same basis as every 
one else. And the straight-out Americans, in whole 
or in part of German blood, should themselves insist 
on this, not as a favor which they request, but as a 
right which they demand, a right predicated on their 
fervid and militant Americanism. I wish we could 
see such an organization formed, an uncompromis- 
ingly straight-out American organization, including 
Americans of all our different blood strains, but with 
as large a proportion of Americans in whole or in 
part of German blood as possible, and then let this 
organization take the lead in aggressively loyal 
Americanism, in the demand to fight this war with 
all speed and efficiency, until it is crowned by the 
peace of complete victory and in the purpose to 
make this peace mark the glorious rebirth, the puri- 
fication and the giant growth of the American spirit 
■ — the spirit of an intense and unified American 
nationalism. 



THE GERMAN HORROR 145 

We Americans must be loyal first to our own 
Nation and to our own national ideals, and we must 
develop to the utmost the virile hardihood of body, 
mind, and soul without which there can be no real 
greatness. And our devotion to America shall in 
part show itself in the unswerving effort to make 
this great democratic Republic both strong for self- 
defense and strong for wise and brotherly help to 
other nations, to make it both the leader and the 
servant of all mankind. 



THE GERMAN HORROR 

May 2, 1918 

The Hague conferences laid down a number of rules 
which the signatory powers, including Germany, 
agreed to observe in order to mitigate the horrors of 
war. Germany has with equal cynicism and brutal- 
ity violated every one of these rules. She has waged 
war as it was waged in the Dark Ages. She has 
shown revolting cruelty toward soldiers and espe- 
cially toward non-combatants, including women and 
children. 

At this moment a great cannon is bombarding 
Paris. Not a soldier has been killed by it; it has not 
in the smallest degree affected France's military 
power, nor was it intended to do so. It was intended 
to terrorize the French civilian population by the 
destruction of churches, hospitals, and private build- 
ings and the murder of women and children. On 



146 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

Good Friday one of the shells wrecked a church and 
killed a number of the little choir boys and a number 
of women who were at prayer. Among the killed 
were three American women whom I knew, who 
were abroad working for our soldiers. An American 
friend who saw the horror writes me: 

Evidently the Germans do not worry over the fact that 
their shells descend on women and children kneelin-g in prayer 
on a Good Friday, before the crucifix. 

Another American friend, a Red Cross woman, 
writes: 

One shell burst in a maternity hospital, killing a nurse, a 
young mother, and a little baby. Several other mothers and 
new-born babies were injured. 

The Zeppelins and airplanes are continually 
bombarding undefended English and French cities 
and have killed women and children by the hun- 
dreds. The submarines have waged war with callous 
mercilessness. Their crews have continually prac- 
ticed torture on the prisoners they have taken. 
They leave women and children to drown. They 
shoot into the lifeboats. At this moment Americans 
are dying from the poison gas which the Germans, 
in contemptuous defiance of The Hague rules, have 
made an ordinary weapon of war. I have just been 
talking with an American soldier absolutely trust- 
worthy, who himself saw the body of a Canadian 
whom the Germans had just crucified. 
y Every violation of the laws of war has been 
practiced by Germany. By her outrages on human- 
ity she has made herself an outlaw among nations, 



SEDITION 147 

and unless she pays heavily for her crimes, the whole 
world wull be in danger. It is Germany, and only 
Germany, who is responsible for the hideous atroci- 
ties that have marked this war, atrocities w^hich all 
civilized men outside of Germany believed to have 
been eliminated forever from civilized warfare. 
Germany has habitually and as a matter of policy 
practiced the torture of men, the rape of women, and 
the killing of children. 

It was deeply to our discredit that during the 
shameful years of our neutrality we refused to pro- 
test against these hideous atrocities. Now at last 
this Nation has awakened and has gone to war 
against the enemy of America and of mankind. Let 
our people now keep steadily in mind just what kind 
of a foe we are fighting and just what kind of infamy, 
that foe is habitually practicing. Then let us resolve 
that, come what may, we will fight this war through 
to a finish until the authors of this hideous infamy 
have paid in full and have been punished as they 
deserve. For in no other way can a peace worth 
having be obtained. 



SEDITION, A FREE PRESS, AND 
PERSONAL RULE 

May 7, 1918 

The legislation now being enacted by Congress 
should deal drastically with sedition. It should also 
guarantee the right of the press and people to speak 



148 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

the truth freely of all their public servants, including 
the President, and to criticize them in the severest 
terms of truth whenever they come short in their 
public duty. Finally, Congress should grant the 
Executive the amplest powers to act as an executive 
and should hold him to stern accountability for 
failure so to act, but it should itself do the actual 
lawmaking and should clearly define the lines and 
limits of action and should retain and use the fullest 
powers of investigation into and supervision over 
such action. Sedition is a form of treason. It is an 
offense against the country, not against the Presi- 
dent. At this time to oppose the draft or sending 
our armies to Europe, to uphold Germany, to attack 
our allies, to oppose raising the money necessary to 
carry on the war are at least forms of sedition, while 
to act as a German spy or to encourage German 
spies to use money or intrigue in the corrupt service 
of Germany, to tamper with our war manufactures 
and to encourage our soldiers to desert or to fail in 
their duty, and all similar actions are forms of un- 
doubtedly illegal sedition. For some of these offenses 
death should be summarily inflicted. For all the 
punishment should be severe. 

The Administration has been gravely remiss in 
dealing with such acts. 

Free speech, exercised both individually and 
through a free press, is a necessity in any country 
where the people are themselves free. Our Govern- 
ment is the servant of the people, whereas in Ger- 
many it is the master of the people. This is because 



SEDITION 149 

the American people are free and the German are 
not free. The President is merely the most im- 
portant among a large number of public servants. 
He should be supported or opposed exactly to the 
degree which is warranted by his good conduct or 
bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in render- 
ing loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Na- 
tion as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary 
that there should be full liberty to tell the truth 
about his acts, and this means that it is exactly 
necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to 
praise him when he does right. Any other attitude 
in an American citizen is both base and servile. To 
announce that there must be no criticism of the 
President, or that we are to stand by the President, 
right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, 
but is morally treasonable to the American public. 
Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him 
or any one else. But it is even more important to 
tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him 
than about any one else. 

During the last year the Administration has 
shown itself anxious to punish the newspapers which 
uphold the war, but which told the truth about the 
Administration's failure to conduct the war effi- 
ciently, whereas it has failed to proceed against 
various powerful newspapers which opposed the war 
or attacked our allies or directly or indirectly aided 
Germany against this country, as these papeis up- 
held the Administration and defended the ineffi- 
ciency. Therefore, no additional power should be 



I50 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

given the Administration to deal with papers for 
criticizing the Administration. And, moreover, Con- 
gress should closely scrutinize the way the Post- 
master-General and Attorney-General have already 
exercised discrimination between the papers they 
prosecuted and the papers they failed to prosecute. 
Congress should give the President full power for 
efficient executive action. It should not abrogate 
its own power. It should define how he is to reorgan- 
ize the Administration. It should say how large an 
army we are to have and not leave the decision to 
the amiable Secretary of War, who has for two years 
shown such inefficiency. It should declare for an 
army of five million men and inform the Secretary 
that it would give him more the minute he asks for 
more. 



THE DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 
May 12, 1918 

As now seems likely, if the great German drive fails, 
it is at least possible that, directly or indirectly, the 
Germans will then start a peace drive. In such case 
they will probably endeavor to make such seeming 
concessions as to put a premium upon pacifist agita- 
tion for peace in the free countries of the West 
against which they are fighting. To yield to such 
peace proposals would be fraught with the greatest 
danger to the Allies, and especially to our own 
country in the future. 



DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 151 

Let us never forget that no promise Germany 
makes can be trusted. The kultur developed under 
the Hohenzollerns rests upon shameless treachery 
and duplicity no less than upon ruthless violence and 
barbarity. 

For example, there are strong indications that 
Germany may be prepared, if she now fails on the 
western front, to abandon all that for which she has 
fought on her western front, provided that in Middle 
Europe and in the East there is no interference with 
her. In other words, she would be prepared to give 
back Alsace and Lorraine to France, to give Italian 
Austria to Italy, to give Luxemburg to Belgium, and 
to let the Allies keep the colonies they have con- 
quered, on condition that her dominance in Russia 
and in the Balkans, her dominance of the subject 
peoples of Austria through the Austrian Hapsburgs, 
and her dominance of Western Asia through her 
vassal state, Turkey, should be left undisturbed. To 
the average American, and probably to the average 
Englishman and Frenchman, there is much that is 
alluring in such a programme. It might be urged as a 
method of stopping the frightful slaughter of war, 
while securing every purpose for which the free 
peoples who still fight are fighting. Yet it would be 
infinitely better that this war were carried on to the 
point of exhaustion than that we yield to such terms. 

Such terms would mean the definite establishment 
of Germany's military ascendancy on a scale never 
hitherto approached in the civilized world. It would 
mean that perhaps within a dozen years, certainly 



152 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

within the Hfetime of the very men now fighting this 
war, this country and the other free countries would 
have to choose between bowing their necks to the 
German yoke or else going into another war under 
conditions far more disadvantageous to them. 

A premature and inconclusive peace now would 
spell ruin for the world, just as in 1864 a premature 
and inconclusive peace would have spelled ruin to 
the United States, and in the present instance the 
United States would share the ruin of the rest of the 
free peoples of mankind. 

On the face of it Germany would not become a 
giant empire. Just exactly as on the face of it at 
present Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria 
call themselves simply four allied nations, standing 
on equal terms. But in reality those four powers are 
merely Germany and her three vassal states, whose 
military and economic and political powers are all 
disposed of by the Hohenzollerns. A peace such as 
that above outlined would leave these as really one 
huge empire. The population of these four countries, 
plus the populations of Russian regions recently 
annexed by Germany, is over two hundred millions. 
This population would be directed and dominated by 
the able, powerful, and utterly brutal and unscrupu- 
lous German governing class, which the very fact of 
the peace would put in the saddle, and the huge 
empire thus dominated and directed would become 
a greater menace to the free peoples than anything 
known for the last thousand years. 

Short-sighted people will say that this power 



DANGERS OF A PREMATURE PEACE 153 

would only menace Asia, and therefore that \ve need 
feel no concern about it. There could be no error 
greater or more lamentable. Twenty 3^ears hence by 
mere mass and growth Germany would dominate 
the Western European powers that have now fought 
her. This would mean that the United States would 
be left as her victim. 

In the first place, she would at once trample the 
Monroe Doctrine under foot, and treat tropical and 
south temperate America as her fields for exploita- 
tion, domination, and conquest. In the next place," 
she would surely trample this country under foot 
and bleed us white, doing to us on a gigantic scale 
what she has done to Belgium. If such a peace as is 
above described were at this time made, the United 
States could by no possibility escape the fate of 
Belgium and of the Russian territories taken by Ger- 
many unless we ourselves became a powerful mili- 
tarist state with every democratic principle sub- 
ordinated to the one necessity of turning this Nation 
into a huge armed camp — I do not mean an armed 
nation, as Switzerland is armed, and as I believe 
this country ought to be armed. I mean a nation 
whose sons, every one of them, would have to serve 
from three to five years in the army, and whose 
whole activities, external and internal, would be 
conditioned by the one fact of the necessity of mak- 
ing head, single-handed, against Germany. 

I very strongly believe that never again should 
we be caught unprepared as we have been caught 
unprepared this time. I believe that all our young 



154 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

men should be trained to arms as the Swiss are 
trained. But I would regard it as an unspeakable 
calamity for this Nation to have to turn its whole 
energies into the kind of exaggerated militarism 
which under such circumstances would alone avail 
for self-defense. 

The military power of Germany must be brought 
low. The subject nations of Austria, the Balkans, 
and Western Asia must be freed. We ought not to 
refrain an hour longer from going to war with 
Turkey and Bulgaria. They are part of Germany's 
military strength. They represent some of the most 
cruel tyrannies over subject peoples for which Ger- 
many stands. It is idle for us to pretend sympathy 
with the Armenians unless we war on Turkey, 
which, with Germany's assent, has well-nigh crushed 
the Armenians out of existence. 

When President Wilson stated that this war was 
waged to make democracy safe throughout the 
world, he properly and definitely committed the 
American people to the principles above enunciated, 
and for the American people to accept less than their 
President has thus announced that he would insist 
upon would be unworthy. The President has also 
said that "there is therefore but one response possi- 
ble for us. Force — force to the utmost — force with- 
out stint or limit — the righteous and triumphant 
force which shall make right the law of the world 
and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust," 

The American people must support President 
Wilson unflinchingly in the stand to which he is thus 



THE WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN 155 

committed and must resolutely refuse to accept any 
other position. We must guard against any slacken- 
ing of effort. We must refuse to accept any pre- 
mature peace or any peace other than the peace of 
overwhelming victory. 

We must secure such complete freedom for the 
peoples of Central Europe and Western Asia as will 
shatter forever the threat of German world domina- 
tion. Our honorable obligations to our allies, our 
loyalty to our own national principles, the need to 
protect our American neighbors, the need to defend 
our own land and people, and our hopes for the peace 
and happiness of our children's children all forbid us 
to accept an ignoble and inconclusive peace. 



THE WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN 

May 27, 1918 

Of course the primary factor in deciding this war is 
and will be the army. But there can be no great 
army in war to-day unless a great nation stands back 
of it. The most important of all our needs is im- 
mensely to strengthen the fighting line at the front. 
But it cannot be permanently strengthened unless 
the whole Nation is organized back of the front. We 
need increased production by all. We need thrift 
and the avoidance of extravagance and of waste of 
money upon non-essentials by all. W^e need the in- 
vestment of our money in government securities by 
all of us. 



156 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

The Government, through the War Savings cam- 
paign, offers the opportunity to every individual in 
the Nation to join in a great national movement to 
secure these ends. The Treasury Department pro- 
poses as a means to achieve these ends that all our 
people form themselves into Thrift clubs or War 
Savings societies. This is the people's war. The 
responsibility for the Government rests on the people 
as a whole. The army is the people's army. It can 
be supported only if the people invest in the securi- 
ties of the Government. And this investment by the 
people should be as nearly universal as possible. All 
the men and the women and half the children of the 
land should be active members of Uncle Sam's team. 
The War Savings campaign offers them the chance 
to be active members. This campaign means the 
encouragement of thrift and production. But it 
means much more than this. It also means to make 
our people realize their solidarity and mutual inter- 
dependence and to make them understand that the 
Government is really theirs. Therefore it is a move- 
ment for genuine Americanization of all our people. 
It is a movement to fuse all our different race stocks 
Into one great unified nationality. It is emphatically 
a movement for nationalism and patriotism. 

Between thirty and forty millions of our people 
to-day own Liberty bonds or War Savings Stamps. 
All of us who come in this class have an increased 
sense of loyalty and responsibility to the Govern- 
ment. The Treasury Department has offered 
through the War Savings plan a great opportunity 



THE WAR SAVINGS CAMPAIGN 157 

for the entire Nation to group itself into War Savings 
societies or Thrift clubs and thus be of immediate 
and direct service to the Government. Neither 
through government programme and traditions nor 
through the habits of the people were we in any way 
prepared for this struggle. We were a spendthrift 
Nation. One of the roads to national unity and 
national force in this war is through thrift, using 
the word to include both increased production in 
every field and also the conservation of those things 
which are so desperately needed for the winning of 
the war. The conscientious thrifty man to-day will 
conserve food as requested by the Food Administra- 
tion. He will conserve fuel as requested by the Fuel 
Administration. And he will conserve to the best 
of his ability the labor and materials which the Gov- 
ernment needs by not using his money for purchas- 
ing any of the non-essentials and thereby using up 
materials and labor needed by the Government. He 
will, by purchasing government securities, entrust 
the spending of his money to the Government in 
order to speed up the war and to secure the peace of 
overwhelming victory. 

Let all of us join in this movement. The success 
of the War Savings campaign means an immense 
addition to our war strength. It also means the first 
step in economic preparedness for what is to come 
after the war. We must never return to our hap- 
hazard spendthrift ways. Thrift should be made a 
national habit as part of our social and industrial 
readjustment. 



158 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

We are just finishing our Red Cross campaign. 
Now let us put through the War Savings campaign. 



ANTI-BOLSHEVISM 
June 5, 1918 

On the whole the worst fate that can befall any 
country is to fall into the hands of the Bolsheviki. 
Therefore, we should visit with heavy condemnation 
the RomanofTs of politics and industry who, by 
Bourbon-like inability to see or refusal to face the 
future, make ready the way for Bolshevism. Utter 
ruin will befall this country if it falls into the hands 
of Haywoods and Townleys and of the politicians 
who truckle to them, but the surest way to secure 
their temporary and disastrous triumph is to refuse 
to make every effort, in sane, good-tempered, reso- 
lute fashion, to deal with the problems which affect 
unfavorably the welfare of the farmer and the 
working-man. 

Mere stolid inaction, mere refusal to acknowledge 
the existence of trouble and duty to remedy it 
amounts to playing into the hands of the worst and 
most evil agitators. Such an attitude on the part of 
our political leaders is almost as bad as the failure to 
act with instant readiness and full strength against 
disorder or as the time-serving cowardice which bows 
to and flatters the leaders of disorder. What is 
needed is unhesitating and thoroughgoing con- 
demnation of, and action against, the anarchists and 



ANTI-BOLSHEVISM 159 

inciters to sedition and to class envy and hatred, and 
at the same time genuine and radical effort to secure 
for the farmer and the working-man and for every- 
one else the square deal in actual fact. Neither 
attitude is enough by itself; the two must go to- 
gether if results of lasting worth are to be secured. 

The leaders in such movements as the I.W.W. in- 
clude a large proportion of men whose activities are 
criminal, and who, as regards civilization and all 
that makes life worth living for decent, hard-working 
men and women, stand merely as human beasts of 
prey. But very many of these fellows are not bad 
men at all, but merely unfortunates who turn to 
an evil organization because no good organization 
offers them relief or concerns itself with their welfare. 
I am not speaking of theory; I am speaking of fact. 
I know of cases in connection with the forest service 
where government officials, by acting on behalf of 
maltreated crews of lumber companies and by seeing 
that they got justice and fair treatment, turned 
them into zealous, right-feeling, public-spirited 
citizens, who, for instance, worked hard and dis- 
interestedly in putting out forest fires. 

It is idle to say that no governmental action is 
needed on behalf of farmers and wage-workers. Un- 
questionably such action will merely do harm unless 
at the same time the interests and permanent welfare 
of the business men of the country, great and small, 
are considered. But the action itself is necessary. 
It should be based on the theory that so far as pos- 
sible the work of betterment, alike as regards farmers, 



l6o ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

working-men, and business men, take the form of 
cooperation among themselves, with the maximum 
amount of individual and collective private effort, 
and the minimum necessary amount of govern- 
mental control and encouragement. It is not pos- 
sible to state empirically in advance just how far this 
governmental control and encouragement shall go. 
This must be determined by actual experience in 
settling what is necessary in each individual set of 
cases. The best result will always come where the 
organization of private citizens is not limited to any 
one class, but include farmers, working-men, busi- 
ness men; just as is true of one such great organiza- 
tion in the State of Iowa; just as is true of a smaller 
but successful organization in and around the city 
of Springfield, Massachusetts; just as is preemi- 
nently true of many of the state councils of defense. 
There must be sincere purpose to push forward and 
remedy wrong; but there must likewise be firm 
refusal to submit to the leadership of either the crim- 
inal fringe or the lunatic fringe. Class hatred is a 
mighty poor substitute for American brotherhood. 
If we are wise we will proceed by evolution and not 
revolution. But Bourbon refusal to move forward 
at all merely invites revolution. 

GENERAL WOOD 
June 15, 1918 

Senator Hiram Johnson has rendered many nota- 
ble services to the public, and among them is his 



GENERAL WOOD i6i 

recent speech concerning the cruel injustice with 
which Major-General Leonard Wood has been 
treated and the very grave damage thereby done the 
army and the AlHed cause at this critical moment of 
the war. 

General Wood's entire offense consists in his hav- 
ing, before the war, continually advocated our doing 
things which now every one in his senses admits 
ought to have been done. Nine tenths of wisdom 
consists of being wise in time. General Wood was 
wise in time. Moreover, by twenty years of hard, 
practical work, he fitted himself to do peculiarly 
well in this very crisis. He was our senior general 
in rank, he was recognized by the best French and 
English military authorities as by experience trained 
to play an immediate and important part in the 
difficult and perilous joint work of the war. He had 
testified at length and with exhaustive professional 
knowledge before the congressional military com- 
mittees, one year and two years prior to our entry 
into the war, pointing out all the military lacks, 
which experience has since shown to exist and which 
the War Department then denied existed. He is to 
be credited with the only piece of serious military 
preparedness in advance which is to our credit. In 
the service of 191 5, in the teeth of indifference and 
hostility from his superiors, he created the Platts- 
burg officers' reserve training camp, starting the 
system of training camps which has enabled us to 
ofificer our draft army. 

He is in splendid physical condition. Recently 



i62 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

when In France he was severely wounded by a shell 
burst, and the surgeons reported his recovery as be- 
ing more rapid than would have been the case with 
the average young man of robust bodily health and 
vigor. He has done excellent work in training his 
men at Camp Funston. He has been unwearied in 
looking after the health and welfare of his men. He 
has been rewarded by their loyal devotion; they 
have been profoundly grieved and moved by having 
him suddenly taken from them. The refusal to use 
his great ability and energy means a distinct subtrac- 
tion from the sum total of our military efficiency, a 
distinct addition to the risk from disease and discom- 
fort which some of our men at the front will have to 
incur, and a distinct benefit to the cause of Germany. 
No explanation has been given the American 
people for the action concerning him. Nothing has 
been made public which warrants our belief that this 
action was due either to professional or to patriotic 
considerations. 



HELP RUSSIA NOW^ 
June 20, 191 8 

Russia has been thrown under the Iron t3Tanny of 
German militarism and capitalism by the Bolshe- 
vists of the Lenine type. The Russian people are 
slowly awakening to this bitter truth. The far- 
sighted, the Russians of genuine patriotism, have 
long been awake, but the peasants, who are at heart 



HELP RUSSIA NOW 163 

good, but who are ignorant and misled, are now 
awakening also. Plenty of them, especially among 
the Cossacks, are well aware that submission to 
Germany now means death for Russia. Plenty of 
them are eager to fight and know well that only by 
successful war on a grand scale can Russia now be 
saved and regenerated, but they must have help and 
the help must be given immediately or it may be too 
late, and America can best give the help. 

A Russian peasant woman who can hardly write 
her name is here to ask that the help be given im- 
mediately and that it be given in Siberia. She is a 
remarkable character in her strength, her simplic- 
ity, her direct straightforwardness, and her intense 
earnestness and entire disinterestedness. She was 
a major in the Russian army until the Russian army 
was betrayed and dissolved. Her peasant husband 
was killed in the ranks. She served in the ranks of 
a regiment of men. She commanded in a regiment of 
women. She has been wounded four times. She 
was born in Tomsk, Siberia. She is a peasant of the 
best class, in habits of thought and belief and life 
and sympathy. But she has a wide outlook. She 
knows that America will keep her word about Si- 
beria, just as America kept her word about Cuba. 
She asks that for our own sake, just as much as for 
Russia's sake, we now send an army to Siberia, 
entering through Vladivostok or Harbin, or through 
both. She asks us to announce that after the war is 
over we guarantee to return to Russia her country 
with the right for her people to decide for them- 



i64 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

selves how they are to be governed, and that in the 
war we fight with and for all the Russians who will 
fight against Germany for Russia, and that we fight 
to the death against the Germans and against all 
Russians who side with the Germans. 

Siberia is in chaos. Eastern Siberia has plenty 
of food and contains large elements of the popula- 
tion, especially Cossacks, who would promptly join 
with an Allied force which they believed would, in 
good faith, aid in the reconquest of Russia for the 
purpose of giving it back to the Russians themselves. 
West of Lake Baikal is a region dominated by a 
German army, some twenty thousand strong, com- 
posed of former German prisoners of war, who 
are organized under the name of the German Red 
Guards and who are the permanent adherents of 
German autocracy, but who help the cause of 
Russian anarchy in order to conquer Russia for the 
German autocracy. West of these again a stretch 
of country, which includes the passes of the Ural 
Mountains, is held by the splendid Czechs, who, by 
the way, must at the end of this war be rewarded by 
seeing an independent Czech-Slovak commonwealth 
established, just as there must also be a great Jugo- 
slav commonwealth. 

At once there should be in East Siberia an Ameri- 
can army of say thirty thousand men with a Jap- 
anese army of the same size and a British imperial 
army of as nearly the same size as possible. If there 
was difficulty as to the command of the Allied forces, 
borrow some man of great reputation, Joffre, for 



HELP RUSSIA NOW 165 

instance, from France. Let the woman major above 
spoken of and other Russian friends of the peasants 
and of a Russian republic go in advance to make 
clear that the Allied army comes only to restore 
Russia to the Russians. Let all Russians who join 
be paid by the United States on the same scale as 
our own troops, and if necessary let the United 
States guarantee the payment of the Japanese. 
Move against the German Red Guards as quickly 
as possible and then push instantly to join the heroic 
Czechs in the Urals. Let the railroads be organized 
back of the army by our best railroad men and let 
them carry immediately behind the army immense 
quantities of clothing, boots, and farm machinery. 
Siberia has food and it will furnish hundreds of 
thousands of soldiers who will rally around such an 
Allied army as a nucleus. Before this army reached 
the Urals, the Germans would have to prepare to 
meet it and their pressure on the Western front 
would thereby be relieved. 

Russia is at this moment lost, so that no change in 
Russia can make things worse for the Allies than 
they now are. We ought to have acted with energy 
and intelligence on her behalf a year ago. Let us at 
least act now, for no possible action can be worse 
than our inaction. She does not need talk and en- 
voys to study the situation. She needs an army to 
serve as a nucleus around which she can create her 
own immense armies. The above plan is better than 
none. If our Government can devise a better, let 
them do so, but let us act at once. 



1 66 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

AN AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY 
June 23, 191 8 

It is announced that on the Fourth of July the 
celebration is to be by race groups — that is, by 
Scandinavians, Slavs, Germans, Italians, and so 
forth. In sport organizations it may be necessary to 
have such a kind of divided celebration in some 
places, but I most emphatically protest against such 
a type of celebration being general, and I doubt 
whether it is advisable to have it anywhere. On the 
contrary, I believe that we should make the Fourth 
of July a genuine Americanization day, and should 
use it to teach the prime lesson of Americanism, 
which is that there is no room in the country for the 
perpetuation of separate race groups or racial divi- 
sions, that we must all be Americans and nothing 
but Americans, and that therefore on the Fourth of 
July we should all get together simply as Americans 
and celebrate the day as such without regard to our 
several racial origins. 

At two thirds of the places where I have made 
speeches on Americanism (and these speeches have 
at least been free from any pussy-footing on Amer- 
icanism), I have been introduced by straight 
Americans who were in whole or in part of German 
blood. At Milwaukee, for example, I was introduced 
by August Vogel, who has three sons already in the 
army and a fourth who will enter this summer. At 
Martinsville, Indiana, I was introduced by the 



HOW NOT TO ADJOURN POLITICS 167 

mayor, George F. Schmidt, who has two sons in^the 

army. One of the sons, Wayne Schmidt, was the 

catcher of the University of Indiana baseball nine. 

He was in the same regiment with my two sons, Ted 

and Archie, and like Archie has been severely 

wounded. Mayor Schmidt writes me: 

We are proud of Wayne and hope that his wounds will soon 
heal and that he may get back to his regiment and continue 
to serve his country. There is nothing fifty-fifty in this boy's 
blood or any of his kin. His greatest ambition is to lead a 
company up the streets of Berlin. 

This speaks the true American! . 

I also have German blood in my veins. We Vogels 
and Schmidts and Roosevelts intend to celebrate the 
Fourth of July with all our fellow Americans, with- 
out regard to whether they are of German, English 
or Irish, French, Scandinavian, Spanish, or Italian 
blood. Unless they are Americans and nothing else, 
they are out of place at a Fourth of July celebration, 
and if they are straight Americans, absolutely loyal 
to America, and resolutely bent on putting this war 
through until it is crowned by the peace of complete 
victory, then we are their brothers, their fellow 
Americans, and we decline to permit any lines of 
separation between us and them. 



HOW NOT TO ADJOURN POLITICS 

June 25, 1918 

In the current North American Review and its 
supplemental War Weekly there are two strong and 



168 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

deeply patriotic articles on the President's recent 
announcement that politics is to be adjourned. 
When contrasted with the injection of politics by the 
President into the senatorial contests in Wisconsin 
and Michigan, never before in any great crisis in this 
country has there been such complete subordination 
of patriotism to politics as by this Administration 
during this war. Witness the activities of the organ- 
ization under Messrs. Burleson and Creel and the 
working alliance between the Administration and 
the Hearst newspapers, while Vice-President Mar- 
shall and Secretary McAdoo give the signal for frank 
partisanship of an extreme type in their public 
speeches. The various activities are, of course, co- 
related and directed toward the same end. 

In Wisconsin the President interfered by a per- 
sonal appeal for the Democratic senatorial candidate 
against the Republican. He based his appeal on 
certain alleged positions taken by the Republican 
candidate, Mr. Lenroot, during the two years and a 
half preceding our entry into the war, which posi- 
tions, he asserted, did not meet the " acid test " of 
patriotism. The President made the conduct of our 
public men during the two years and a half prior to 
the war the test by which they are to be judged, and 
where he himself applies this test to others he must 
himself be judged by it. 

His supporters make the plea that to call attention 
to the President's record during these two and a half 
years is to cry over spilt milk. But the President's 
attack on Lenroot was a square repudiation of this 



HOW NOT TO ADJOURN POLITICS' 169 

plea when it applied to anybody except himself. In 
reality the " acid test " of patriotism during these 
two and a half years is to be found in the use of 
phrases like " too proud to fight " and " peace with- 
out victory " and the refusal to act instead of merely 
talking after the sinking of the Lusitania; in the 
fatuous refusal to prepare and in the insistence on 
preserving an ignoble neutrality between right and 
wrong between those who were fighting to make the 
world safe for democracy and liberty and those who 
were fighting to overthrow both. Tried by the test 
of past conduct which the President applied to Mr. 
Lenroot, he is himself found wanting. Mr. Lenroot 
spilled a teaspoonful of milk, but Mr. Wilson spilled 
a bucketful and he must not call attention to the 
teaspoon and expect to escape having attention 
called to the bucket. 

The President has now personally requested Mr. 
Henry Ford to come forward as his personal candi- 
date for the Senate in Michigan. This action cannot 
be reconciled either with the President's statement 
that politics must be adjourned or with the reasons 
he alleged for opposing Mr. Lenroot. No man was 
a more intense pacifist, no man struggled harder 
against preparedness, no man was more eagerly 
hailed as an ally by the pro-Germans than Mr. Ford 
during the two and a half years before we did our 
duty and entered the war. He is not a Republican ; 
he is not a Democrat. He supported Mr. Wilson on 
the " he kept us out of war " issue. Mr. Wilson can 
only desire his election on grounds of personal poli- 



I70 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

tics, as Mr. Wilson wishes as associates not strong 
men, but servants, and from the servants he de- 
mands serviHty even more than service. I have not 
the sHghtest poHtical feeHng when poHtics comes into 
hostile contact with patriotism and Americanism. 
There is no public servant whom during the past 
year I have supported more heartily than the Demo- 
cratic Senator, Chamberlain. I oppose Mr. Ford, 
because in the great crisis I feel that his election 
would be a calamity from the standpoint of far- 
sighted and patriotic Americanism. I would oppose 
him if he had been nominated by the Republican 
Party. I oppose him in precisely the same spirit 
now that he has been nominated on personal grounds 
by Mr. Wilson. 



HATS OFF TO THE INTERNATIONAL 

TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION 

June 27, 1918 

The published reports of the International Typo- 
graphical Union, issued from Indianapolis, make a 
very remarkable showing and put that organization 
high on the honor roll of America for the Great War. 
Forty-one hundred journeymen members of the 
union and seven hundred apprentices are in the 
military and naval forces of the United States and 
Canada. Seventy-five members have already paid 
with their lives for their devotion to their country. 
The union has paid ^22,000 mortuary benefits to 



HATS OFF TO TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION 171 

the widows, orphans, and mothers of these men. 
The union, through its executive council, has in- 
vested $90,000 in the Liberty loans, and subordi- 
nate local unions and individual members have in- 
vested $3,000,000 in the Liberty loans. 

These are war-time activities. During the same 
period the International Typographical Union has 
continued all its ordinary benefit works. It has paid 
over $350,000 to fifteen hundred old-age pensioners, 
over $300,000 in mortuary benefits, and $170,000 
to the Union Printers* Home at Colorado Springs. 
Every dollar has been paid by members of the organ- 
ization in the form of regular dues and assessments. 
The union neither solicits nor accepts contributions 
to its benefit funds. 

During the same period the union has expended 
only $1200 for strike expenses. The union acts in 
thoroughgoing patriotic fashion on the conviction 
that there should be no strikes or lockouts during the 
war. Its officers regard themselves as volunteers in 
the army for the preservation of industrial peace, at 
least for the duration of the war, and I hope for long 
after the war. Such conduct offers a striking con- 
trast to the action of certain corporations which dur- 
ing this war have refused to permit their employees 
to organize. Labor has as much right as capital to 
organize. It is tyranny to forbid the exercise of this 
right, just as it is tyranny to misuse the power ac- 
quired by organization. The people of the United 
States do not believe in tyranny and do believe in 
cooperation. 



172 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

The International Typographical Union has 
offered an admirable example of Americanism and 
patriotism. Its attitude is typical of the attitude of 
organized labor generally. Hats off to the Inter- 
national Typographical Union ! And hats off to the 
working-men and working-women of the United 
States! 



THE PERFORMANCE OF A GREAT 

PUBLIC DUTY 

July 3, 191 8 

It is announced from Washington that the President 
has been converted to the need of universal military 
training of our young men, as a permanent policy. 
This is excellent. If this policy is forthwith incorpo- 
rated into our laws, it will represent an immense 
national advance. In the first place, it will guarantee 
us against a repetition of the humiliating experiences 
of the last four years, when our helpless refusal to 
prepare invited Germany's attack upon us and then 
forced us to rely entirely upon our allies to protect 
us from that attack while for over a year we slowly 
made ready to defend ourselves. In the next place, 
it will immeasurably increase the moral and physical 
efficiency of the young men who are trained and fit 
them both to do better for themselves and to per- 
form in better fashion the tasks of American citizen- 
ship. Finally it is essential that the policy should be 
adopted now while we are at war and therefore while 



A GREAT PUBLIC DUTY 173 

our people are awake to the needs of the situation. 
As soon as peace comes, there will be a revival of the 
sinister agitation of the pro-German or other anti- 
American leaders and of the silly clamor of the 
pacifists, all of whom will with brazen folly again 
reiterate that preparedness ends with war, and that, 
anyhow, all war can be averted by signing scraps of 
paper. The adoption at once of the policy of obliga- 
tory universal military training will be the perform- 
ance of a great public duty. 

For three years the foremost advocates of this 
policy have pointed out that it can advantageously 
be combined with a certain amount of industrial 
training. It is earnestly to be hoped that this ele- 
ment of industrial training will be incorporated in 
the law. Of course, in such case the length of service 
with the colors in the field, aside from preliminary 
training in the higher school grades, ought to be a 
year, so as to avoid superficiality. Credit should be 
given the graduates of certain scholastic institutions 
or to individuals who speedily attain a high degree 
of proficiency, and for them the time of service could 
be shortened. All officers or other candidates for 
officers' training schools would be chosen from 
among the best of the men who had gone through 
the training, without regard to anything except their 
fitness. This would represent the embodiment in 
our army of the democratic principle which insists 
upon an equal chance for all, equal justice for all, and 
the need for leadership, and therefore for special 
rewards for leadership. The industrial training 



174 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

could be so shaped as to emphasize the need that 
hard workers who are efficient should become in a 
real sense partners in industry, and that insistence 
upon efficiency should be accompanied by a fair 
division of the rewards of efficiency, and by insist- 
ence that the work should be made healthful and 
interesting, so that its faithful performance would 
be a matter of pride and pleasure. 

At this moment our training camps are huge uni- 
versities, huge laboratories of fine American citizen- 
ship. Let us make them permanent institutions. 
They develop both power of initiative and power of 
obedience. They inculcate self-reliance and self- 
respect. They also inculcate respect for others and 
readiness for discipline, which means readiness to 
use our collective power in such shape as to make us 
threefold more efficient than we have been. To make 
these camps permanent training schools for all our 
young men would mean the greatest boon this 
Nation could receive. 



REPEAL THE CHARTER OF THE 

GERMAN-AMERICAN ALLIANCE 

July ii, 1918 

The United States Senate has struck an effective 
blow against the Hun within our gates by unani- 
mously voting to repeal the charter of the German- 
American Alliance. It is earnestly to be hoped that 
the House will at once follow suit with like unanim- 



THE GERMAN-AMERICAN ALLIANCE 175 

ity. The Alliance has been thoroughly mischievous 
in its activities. It has acted in the interest of Ger- 
many and against the interest of America. It has 
tried to perpetuate Germanism as a separate nation- 
ality with a separate language in the United States; 
it has attacked our allies; it has encouraged dis- 
loyalty; it was decorated by the Kai.ser for its 
services to Germany. It has endeavored to prosti- 
tute our politics to German needs. I have personally 
had the honor of being specially singled out by it 
for attack. It received money from the Brewers' 
Association for the campaign against prohibition. 

At this time, when the campaign of German fright- 
fulness is in full blast, when the Prussianized Ger- 
many of the Hohenzollerns is steadily adding to 
its list of literally unforgivable offenses against 
civilization, there is no room in this country for any 
organization, great or small, which either defends 
Germany or is lukewarm in the great crusade against 
her in which America will henceforth play a leading 
part. Germany has recently scored another victory 
for frightfulness by sinking a Canadian hospital ship 
without warning and drowning two hundred persons, 
including women nurses. The ship was a mercy Ul <Z 
vessel, not a warship, and was so distinctly marked 1^ 

that it was impossible to mistake it. The attack 
upon it was sheer murder. Yet the German people 
tolerate, applaud, and approve the action of the 
German Government in this continuous and method- 
ically organized campaign of murder, rape, and 
outrage. 



176 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

The most complete exposure of Germany's in- 
famous purpose in forcing this dreadful war upon 
the world is contained in the pamphlet written 
by the leading German steel magnate, Herr August 
Thyssen. This pamphlet has been translated into 
English, has been put into the official record by 
Senator Owen, of Oklahoma, has been printed in full 
in the San Francisco Argonaut and Baltimore Manu- 
facturers' Record, and circulated in pamphlet form 
by Mr. J. G. Butler, Jr., of Youngstown, Ohio. It 
is accessible to everybody. Herr Thyssen has no con- 
ception of the monstrous turpitude of the plan which 
he supported. His only complaint is that he and the 
other German financiers were fooled by the German 
Kaiser and the German Government, who promised 
them victory and failed to furnish it. He proves that 
German capitalism was just as responsible for the 
war as German militarism (which incidentally shows 
the peculiar infamy of the Russian Bolshevists and 
American Socialists and their allies in playing Ger- 
many's game). He shows that Germany's ruthless 
brutality was equaled by her sordid greed. He 
showed that the Hohenzollern Government, through 
the Emperor and the Chancellor, deliberately 
planned the war over a year and a half before it 
broke out, and at that time and on several occasions 
gathered the leading business men of Germany, in- 
formed them of the plans, and got their support by 
holding out the war as one of sheer plunder. The 
other nations were to be attacked simply in order 
to rob them naked. Herr Thyssen himself was 



A RIGHT TO ONE COUNTRY 177 

promised thirty thousand acres in Australia. The 
Emperor particularly dwelt on the conquest of India, 
saying that the English allowed the vast Indian 
revenue to be used for and by the Indians them- 
selves, but that Germany after her conquest would 
turn the whole " Golden Stream into the Father- 
land." There could be no finer tribute to England 
when compared with Germany than that which is 
thus furnished by the Emperor. 

In point of international morality the Germany 
of the Hohenzollerns has become the wild beast of 
the nations. Whoever directly or indirectly works 
for her or against our allies or who is merely luke- 
warm in the war is an enemy of this country, and an 
enemy of all mankind. 



EVERY MAN HAS A RIGHT TO ONE 
COUNTRY 

July 15, 1918 

Every man ought to love his country. If he does 
not love his country and is not eager to serve her, he 
is a worthless creature and should be contemptu- 
ously thrown out of the country when possible, and 
at any rate debarred from all rights of citizenship in 
the country. He is only entitled to one country. If 
he claims loyalty to two countries, he is necessarily 
a traitor to at least one country. If he claims to be 
loyal to both Germany and America, he is necessarily 
a traitor to America. No man can be a good Ameri- 



178 : ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

can now unless he is an enemy of Germany and Ger- 
many's allies and a stanch supporter of America's 
allies. 

But it is just as wicked and just as un-American 
to deny the loyal American, of whatever origin, the 
full benefit of his allegiance to one country as it is to 
permit the disloyal American to exercise' a treacher- 
ous alternative allegiance to two countries. Every 
man has a right to one country. He has a right to 
love and serve that country and to feel that it is 
absolutely his country and that he has in it every 
right possessed by any one else. It is our duty to 
require the man of German blood who is an Ameri- 
can citizen to give up all allegiance to Germany 
whole-heartedly and without on his part any mental 
reservation whatever. If he does this, it becomes no 
less our duty to give him the full rights of an Ameri- 
can, including our loyal respect and friendship with- 
out on our part any mental reservation whatever. 
The duties are reciprocal, and from the standpoint 
of American patriotism one is as important as the 
other. 

There has been nothing finer in this war, nothing 
of better augury for the future of America, than the 
high courage and splendid loyalty shown by the 
American soldiers and sailors who are of German 
blood. Relatively to their number they have come 
forward as freely into the ranks of our fighting men 
as the Americans of any other stock, and all alike 
have shown the same soldierly efficiency, the same 
devoted patriotism, and, when the need arose, the 



A RIGHT TO ONE COUNTRY 179 

same heroism. The crew of the torpedo destroyer 
who face the submarine, and the airmen of the 
battle planes whose Hves are in peril every hour, and 
the infantry stoggers and doughboys and marines 
who stand the kilHng and suffer the grueHng hard- 
ship and misery of the Hne fighting, all alike number 
in their ranks relatively just as many Americans of 
German as of any other blood. Any one can see this 
who will look over the lists of casualties and the lists 
of men cited for deeds of high gallantry. The official 
reports of the German officers bear unintended 
testimony to the intense and patriotic Americanism 
of these men whom the Hohenzollern officials sneer 
at as " half Americans," and who, even when taken 
prisoners, are admitted by the German army officers 
to " express without hesitation purely American 
sentiments." In other words, the Pan-German 
propaganda on behalf of German kultur has broken 
down in America, and as a consequence there are no 
people in this country so hated in the Prussianized 
Germany of the Hohenzollerns as the Americans of 
German blood. 

The very worst enemies of these Americans have 
been the traitors and dupes of traitors who have been 
during the last few years the leaders of the German- 
American Alliance and of the newspapers in German 
or English who have backed up the Alliance and 
similar organizations. The dissolution by law of the 
Alliance and the gradual change of German news- 
papers into newspapers published in English will be 
of benefit to true Americans of German blood more 



i8o ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

than any other of our citizens. But the Americans 
of other blood must remember that the man who in 
good faith and without reservations gives up another 
country for this must in return receive exactly the 
same rights, not merely legal, but social and spirit- 
ual, that other Americans proudly possess. We of 
the United States belong to a new and separate 
nationality. We are all Americans and nothing else, 
and each, without regard to his birthplace, creed, or 
national origin, is entitled to exactly the same rights 
as all other Americans. 



MURDER, TREASON, AND PARLOR 
ANARCHY 

July i8, 1918 

One of the cheapest methods by which some well- 
meaning, silly people, and some sinister people who 
are not well-meaning, achieve a reputation for 
broad-minded liberality in matters relating to social 
reforms is to champion or excuse criminality on the 
ground that it is due to social conditions. The 
parlor anarchist or parlor Bolshevist is not an at- 
tractive person, and he may be mischievous when 
he joins the genuine anarchist, the " direct " man 
with the bomb, because selfish and unpatriotic 
politicians then find it advantageous to pander to 
both. This species of parlor anarchist appeals to 
emotional persons of superficial cultivation, whether 
writers, college men, sham economists, or sham re- 



TREASON AND PARLOR ANARCHY i8i 

llgious and charitable workers, because it makes no 
demand either upon robust vigor of soul or thorough- 
ness of mental process. At the moment it manifests 
itself in sympathy for the I.W.W. and for convicted 
dynamiters and murderers like Mooney. 

There are honest and ignorant working-men who 
join the I.W.W. because they are misled or because 
in some given locality industrial conditions really 
are intolerable. I have heard on good authority of 
logging camps, for instance, where the men joined 
the I.W.W. and practiced sabotage because they 
were treated tyrannically and foolishly and where 
good treatment turned them into good citizens. 
But I know far more numerous instances in which 
the leaders have simply been thugs and murderous 
malefactors whose criminality was not in the least 
due to social conditions, but to their own foul 
natures. By all means let us remedy the social 
conditions that are wrong, but let us shun, as we 
would shun the plague, that mawkish sentimentality 
of downright moral and physical cowardice which 
fears to call murder, treason, violence, arson, and 
rape by their right names and treat them as crimes 
to be punished with relentless severity. 

Actually there have been make-believe social 
reformers who have sought to excuse a brute who 
raped a little girl on the ground that social condi- 
tions made him what he was, and others who on 
similar grounds have protested against the condign 
punishment of men who burn haystacks, ruin ma- 
chinery, dynamite peace parades, and, in the interest 



1 82 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

of German agents, destroy machinery in mines or 
munition factories. Any man who is misled in these 
matters can get full information by buying a pam- 
phlet recently written by a former Socialist, Mr. 
Everett Harri, called " The I.W.W. an Auxiliary of 
the German Espionage System." The simple truth 
is that the men who lead and give the tone to the 
I.W.W. are more dangerous criminals than an equal 
number of white-slavers and black-handers, and to 
give aid and comfort to one set of enemies of the 
Nation is as bad as to give aid and comfort to the 
others. 

The ablest, most far-sighted, and most patriotic 
of the heads of organized labor are more opposed to 
the I.W.W. as it is at present handled than are any 
other persons in the Nation. In just the same way 
the farmers whose resentment of wrongdoing is 
keenest should repudiate the Non-Partisan League 
just as long as it submits to such leadership as that 
of most of the men who are at present at its head, 
and just so long as it stands for covert disloyalty, as 
it has recently done on so many different occasions 
in so many different places. I am well aware that 
great numbers of honest and loyal farmers of high 
character have joined the League, because they 
rightly think that many of the economic conditions 
now affecting the farm.er imperatively call for 
remedy. There are any number of men like myself 
who will join with the farmers in any sane and patri- 
otic movement to remedy these conditions, no 
matter how radical such a movement may be. But 



BACK UP THE FIGHTING MEN 183 

we will join with no movement whose leaders are 
tainted with disloyalty, or who refuse to give to 
others the same square deal they demand for them- 
selves, or who fail to insist that here in America the 
one organization to which we all of us owe a loyalty 
greater than is any other, greater than to any labor 
union or farmers' league or business or professional 
body, is the union of the entire American people. 



BACK UP THE FIGHTING MEN 

AT THE FRONT 

July 26, 1918 

There is no American worth calling such whose 
veins do not thrill with pride when he reads of what 
has been done by General Pershing and his gallant 
army in France. The soldiers over there who wear 
the American uniform have made all good Americans 
forever their debtors. Now and always afterward 
we of this country will walk with our heads high 
because of the men who face death and wounds, and 
so many of whom have given their lives fighting for 
this Nation and for the great ideals of humanity 
across the seas. 

But we must not let our pride and our admiration 
evaporate in mere pride, in mere admiration of what 
others have done. We must put the whole strength 
of this Nation back of the fighting men at the front. 
We owe it to them. We owe it at least as much to 
the gallant Allies, who for near four years fought the 



i84 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

great battle that was our battle, no less than theirs. 

At last we have begun to come to their assistance, 
but let us solemnly realize that we came very late, 
and that it is a dreadful thing if we waste one hour 
that can now be saved, or weaken in the smallest 
degree any effort that can be made. The inability, or 
refusal, of Bolshevist Russia to do her part in the 
great war for liberty and democracy has cast a 
terrible added burden upon the Allies. On the 
eastern front this has meant the temporary Allied 
ruin and the freeing of the armies of the autocracy 
for action against the western peoples. England, 
France, and Belgium for four years and Italy for 
over three years have been fighting the battle of 
civilization. Their man power is terribly depleted. 
Thank Heaven, we have got some hundreds of 
thousands of soldiers across in time to be a real 
element in saving Paris. Our first duty, if we wish to 
win the war, is to save Paris. Temporarily, at least, 
and I hope permanently, we have done our part in 
this respect. But the least faltering, the least letting- 
up, or failure in pushing forward our preparations 
and our assistance, would be dangerous to the Allied 
cause and a wicked desertion of our allies. 

From now on America should make this peculiarly 
America's war. From now on we should take the 
burden of the war upon our shoulders. We should 
move forward at once with all the force that there 
is in us. We should not allow the war to drag for so 
much as a day, and above all we should not permit 
our people to fall under the spell of pacifist dreams 



BACK UP THE FIGHTING MEN 185 

or possible pacifist actions. There should not be in- 
termission of so much as a week in sending our troops 
across the seas. This war won't be won by food, or 
by money, or by savings, or by Thrift Stamps, or by 
the Red Cross, or by anything else, although all of 
these will help win the war. It will be won by the 
valor of the fighting men at the front, and this valor 
will fail unless our fighting men at the front are 
millions strong. 

Every week this summer and fall we should be 
putting fresh troops by scores of thousands across 
the ocean, and now, to-day, this week, we should 
provide for placing a larger army in the field next 
spring than Germany itself, or France and England 
combined. We are a more populous, a richer country 
than Germany, we have a larger population than 
Great Britain and France combined. These nations 
have fought for four years. We have only just begun 
to fight. Let us at once mobilize the whole man 
power of this country between the ages of nineteen 
and fifty or sixty. The draft should take in all men 
of nineteen, even if they were not sent abroad until 
they were twenty years old. Let us act at once. 
Perhaps we can beat the Germans this year if we 
keep pouring our troops over with the utmost speed. 
But let us take no chances. Let us proceed upon the 
assumption that Germany will fight next spring, and 
therefore let us act instantly so that by spring we 
will have in France an army of fighting men, ex- 
clusive of non-combatants and exclusive of home 
depots, which shall amount to four million armed 



1 86 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

soldiers at the very least. Let us fight beside the 
French, the British, the Italians, and be ready to 
fight instantly in the Balkan Peninsula and in Asia 
Minor against the Germans and all her vassal states. 
There must be no delay, not by so much as one hour, 
and no letting-up for one moment in the cause of 
our entire strength. 



THE AMERICANS WHOM WE MOST 

DELIGHT TO HONOR 

August i, 191 8 

At long intervals in the history of a nation there 
come great days when the picked sons of the Nation 
determine for generations to come that nation's 
place in history. During the last few weeks our 
fighting men in France have rendered all the rest of 
us forever their debtors. They have won high honor 
for themselves and for their country. Our children's 
children will owe them deep gratitude for what they 
have done. All Americans hold their heads higher 
because of their deeds. 

Their achievement has been won at the cost of 
perseverance In training and of resolution in facing 
unbelievable hardship and fatigue. It has also cost 
and will cost the death, the crippling, and the 
wounding of many scores of thousands of our best 
and bravest. We who stay behind in ease and com- 
fort, who show our patriotism by economizing on 
sugar or wheat or beef instead of by living in our 



HONORED AMERICANS 187 

clothes until they rot off us in the trenches, or who 
pay money for taxes and bonds and Thrift Stamps 
instead of paying with our blood, owe an incalculable 
debt to the men at the front and to the mothers, 
wives, and little children of those who are killed at 
the front. We must pay this debt. 

The debt is due to our wonderful fighting men at 
the front individually, to our army collectively, and 
to this Nation as a whole. We must provide for the 
crippled men and for the widows and children of the 
dead. Nothing that we can do will lighten the bitter 
sorrow of those who have lost the men they loved; 
stern pride in the courage and gallant devotion of 
those who are dead is the only staff that will help to 
carry that burden for the living. But the material 
needs of the survivors must be met with ample 
generosity and yet in the only permanently effective 
fashion, by training those who need help to help 
themselves and achieve an ever-increasing self- 
respect and self-reliance. 

We must now help the army as a whole by strain- 
ing every nerve without a day's delay immensely to 
increase our strength, our numbers, and our re- 
sources at the front. We should provide now, and as 
a matter of fact we ought to have provided six 
months ago, for an army of six or seven million men, 
so that when next spring opens we may have at least 
four million fighting men at the front. We are more 
populous than Germany, or France and Great 
Britain combined, and we should provide so that 
two years after we entered the war our army shall 



1 88 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

be as large as Germany's or as the combined forces 
of our allies in France. We should speed to the limit 
the work of the ships, guns, and airplanes. At 
present our army is in France mainly because of the 
aid of British ships, and it is able to fight mainly 
because of the field cannon and even airplanes it 
has received from the French. The draft limit 
should be immensely increased and the exceptions 
immensely decreased. 

To stand by the army is to stand by the Nation, 
and therefore to stand by the Allies to whom our 
national faith is plighted. This war will be won by 
the fighting men at the front. All other work is 
merely auxiliary and is entirely subordinate to theirs. 
Let us provide for the army instantly, and let us 
provide for the Nation's future permanently by at 
once introducing the policy of universal obligatory 
military training for all our young men. 

The fighting men at the front are the men most 
worthy of honor. Let every American lad hereafter 
be trained so that in time of need he can fill this 
most honorable of all positions. 



SOUND NATIONALISM AND SOUND 
INTERNATIONALISM 

August 4, 191 8 

The glorious victory of the Allies in the second 
battle of the Marne, a victory in which the hard- 
fighting soldiers of the American army have borne 



SOUND NATIONALISM 189 

so distinguished and honorable a part, may mean the 
failure of the German military offensive for this year. 
Therefore it may mean a renewal of the German 
peace offensive. No man can prophesy in these 
matters, but the Germans may continue the war for 
a long time; and therefore we should prepare to 
have in France an army of four million fighting men 
for the battle front next spring. But the Germans 
may try to make peace instead of continuing the w^ar, 
and may seek to cover their retention of some of 
their ill-gotten substantial gains by nominal and 
theoretical support of some glittering proposal about 
a league of nations to end all war. They will thereby 
hope to keep part of their booty by appealing to 
what is vaguely called internationalism and getting 
the support not only of sentimentalists w^ho do not 
like to look unpleasant facts in the face, but also of 
the good people who are appalled and puzzled and 
panic-struck by the horror Germany has brought on 
the world, and who, instead of bracing themselves 
to put down this horror by their own hardened 
strength and iron will, clutch at any quack remedy 
which false prophets hold out as offering a substitute 
for such action. 

Therefore it is well at this time for sober and 
resolute men and women to apply that excellent 
variety of wisdom colloquially known as " horse 
sense " to the problems of nationalism and inter- 
nationalism. These problems will not be solved by 
rhetoric. Least of all will they be solved by competi- 
tive rhetoric. Masters of phrase-making may win 



190 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

immense, although evanescent, applause by outvy- 
ing one another in words that glitter, but these 
glittering words will not have one shred of lasting 
effect on the outcome except in so far as they may 
have a very mischievous effect if they persuade 
people to abandon the possible real good in the 
fantastic effort to achieve an impossible, unreal 
perfection. Let honest men and women remember 
that this kind of phrase-mongering does not repre- 
sent idealism. The only idealism worth considering 
in the workaday business of this world is applied 
idealism. This is merely another way of saying that 
permanent good to humanity only comes from actu- 
ally trying to reduce ideals to practice, and this 
means that the ideals must be substantially or at 
least measurably realizable. 

The professed internationalist usually sneers at 
nationalism, at patriotism, and at what we call 
Americanism. He bids us forswear our love of 
country in the name of love of the world at large. 
We nationalists answer that he has begun at the 
wrong end; we say that as the world now is, it is 
only the man who ardently loves his country first 
who in actual practice can help any other country at 
all. The internationalist bids us promise to abandon 
the idea of keeping America permanently ready to 
defend her rights by her strength, and to trust, in- 
stead, to scraps of paper, to written agreements by 
which all nations form a league, and agree to disarm 
and agree each to treat all other nations, big or little, 
on an exact equality. We nationalists answer that 



SOUND NATIONALISM 191 

we are ready to join any league to enforce peace or 
similar organization which offers a likelihood of in 
some measure lessening the number and the area of 
future wars, but only on condition that in the first 
place we do not promise what will not or ought not 
to be performed, or be guilty of proclaiming a sham, 
and that in the second place we do not surrender 
our right and duty to prepare our own strength for 
our own defense instead of trusting to the above- 
mentioned scraps of paper. In justification we point 
to certain very obvious facts which ought to be 
patent to every man of common sense. 

Any such league of nations must, of course, in- 
clude the nine nations which have the greatest 
military strength or it will be utterly impotent. 
These nine nations include Germany, Austria, 
Turkey, and Russia. The first three have abun- 
dantly shown during the last four years that no 
written or other promise of the most binding kind 
has even the slightest effect upon their actions. The 
fourth, Russia, under the lead and dominion of the 
Bolsheviki, has just been guilty of the grossest pos- 
sible betrayal of her allies and of the small kindred 
Slavonic peoples and of world democracy. This 
betrayal was in the interest of a military and des- 
potic autocracy and included the direct violation of 
Russia's plighted faith. Under such conditions it is 
unnecessary to say that Russia's signature to an}' 
future league to enforce peace will not be worth the 
paper on which it is written. Therefore the creation 
of any such league for the future will simply mean a 



192 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

pledge by the present Allies to make their alliance 
perpetual and all to go to war again whenever one 
of them is attacked. This may become necessary, 
but it certainly does not imply future disarmament. 
Nor is this all. The United States must come into 
court with clean hands. She must not pledge herself 
without reservation to the right of " self-deter- 
mination " for each people while she has behaved 
toward Haiti and San Domingo as she is now behav- 
ing. It is not possible for me to say whether our 
action in these two cases has been right or wrong, 
because the Administration, with its usual horror of 
publicity, whether pitiless or otherwise, and its 
inveterate predilection for secret and furtive diplo- 
macy, has kept most of the facts hidden. I believe 
that there was no possible excuse for such secret 
diplomacy in these cases and that the same course 
should have been followed as was followed in the 
case of the Panama revolution, where every fact 
was immediately laid without reservation before 
Congress. But even if I am wrong in my belief in 
the general principle of open diplomacy, and even if 
the Administration is right in its consistent policy 
of secret diplomacy as regards the mass of questions 
which I think ought to be made public, the fact 
remains that we have with armed force invaded, 
made war upon, and conquered the two small re- 
publics, have upset their governments, have denied 
them the right of self-determination, and have made 
democracy within their limits not merely unsafe but 
non-existent. As we have no published facts to go 



SOUND NATIONALISM 193 

on, I cannot say whether their misconduct did or 
did not warrant such drastic action on our part, but 
on the assumption that the Administration acted 
properly, we are committed to the principle that 
some nations are not fit for self-determination, that 
democracy within their limits is a sham, and that 
their offenses against justice and right are such as to 
render interference by their more powerful and more 
civilized neighbors imperative. I do not doubt that 
this principle is true in some cases, whether or not it 
ought to be applied in these two particular cases. In 
any event, our continuing action in San Domingo and 
Haiti makes it hypocritical for us to lay down any uni- 
versal rules about self-determination for all nations. 
Our action also shows how utterly futile it would 
be to try to treat a league to enforce peace as a sub- 
stitute for training our own strength for our own de- 
fense. Let China be the witness of the truth of this 
statement. China has actually realized the ideal of 
the pacifists who insist that unpreparedness for war 
secures peace. The ideal of the internationalists is 
that patriotism and sense of nationalism are detri- 
mental to humanity, and the ideal of the Socialists 
is that the capitalist regime is the only cause of 
popular misery. China is helpless to attack others or 
defend herself, her people have little sense of national 
unity and pride, and there are in China huge dis- 
tricts where there are no capitalists and where the 
misery of the people is greater than in any country of 
the Occident. China's helplessness, instead of help- 
ing toward world peace, has been a positive encour- 



194 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

agement to war and violence among her neighbors. 
Her future depends primarily, not on herself, but on 
what her neighbors choose to do. In spite of her size 
and her enormous population and resources, she is 
helpless to do good to others because she is power- 
less to prevent others from doing evil to her. Her 
agreement to a league of nations or to a league to 
enforce peace would be worthless, because she is 
unable to put strength back of justice either for 
herself or for any one else. The pacifists and inter- 
nationalists if they had their way would turn the 
United States into the China of the Occident. 

Let us put our trust neither in rhetoric nor hypoc- 
risy, whether conscious or unconscious. Let us be 
honest with ourselves. Let us look the truth in the 
face. Let us remember what Germany, Austria, and 
Turkey have actually done. Let us remember what 
Russia has suffered from Germany and the worse 
than folly with which she has behaved to ever>^ one 
else. Let us remember what has happened to China 
and what we have made happen to Haiti and San 
Domingo. Then let us trust for our salvation to a 
sound and intense American nationalism. 

The horse sense of the matter is that all agree- 
ments to further the cause of sound internationalism 
must be based on recognition of the fact that as the 
world is actually constituted our present prime need 
is this sound and intense American nationalism. 
The first essential of this sound nationalism is that 
the Nation shall trust to its own fully prepared 
strength for its own defense. So far as possible, its 



SOUND NATIONALISM 195 

strength must also be used to secure justice for others 
and must never be used to wrong others. But unless 
we possess and prepare the strength, we can neither 
help ourselves nor others. Let us by all means go 
into any wise league or covenant among nations to 
abolish neutrality (for, of course, a league to enforce 
peace is merely another name for a league to abolish 
neutrality in every possible war). But let us first 
understand what we are promising, and count the 
cost and determine to keep our promises. Above all, 
let us treat any such agreement or covenant as a 
mere addition to, and never as a substitute for, the 
preparation in advance of our own armed power. 
Next time we behave with the ignoble folly we have 
shown during the last four years we may not find 
allies to do what France and England and Italy have 
done for us. They have protected us with their 
navies and armies, their blood and their treasure, 
while we first refused to do anything and then slowly 
and reluctantly began to harden and make ready 
our giant but soft and lazy strength. 

No proper scheme designed to secure peace with- 
out efTort and safety without service and sacrifice 
will either make this country safe or enable it to do 
its international duty toward others. 

An American citizen, personally unknown to me, 
writes me that his three sons entered the army at 
the outbreak of the war, and that one of them, an 
aviator, was killed in battle at the front just two 
weeks before my own son was killed as he fought in 
the air. In his letter my correspondent adds: . 



196 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

Would that my country might learn and never forget that 
not only the winning of peace now, but the maintenance of 
peace at all times depends not fundamentally on treaties or 
leagues of nations, but on the readiness of citizens to fly to 
the aid of the wronged and to give their lives if need be that 
justice may be secured. 

There speaks the true American spirit which holds 
fast alike to fearlessness and to wisdom, to gentle- 
ness and to iron resolution. There speaks the spirit 
of that fervent nationalism which w^ould forbid 
America either to inflict or to endure wrong. 



THE MAN WHO PAYS AND THE MAN 
WHO PROFITS 

August 9, 1918 

The men who do the fighting at the front and their 
mothers and wives back here are those who in this 
great and terrible crisis are paying — the blood of 
the men and the tears of the women, and with the 
sufTering of men, women, and children — for our 
failure to prepare during the two and a half years 
before we entered the World War. For this failure to 
prepare, in spite of the most vivid warning ever 
given a Nation, the warning that befell the rest of 
the world during those two and a half years, the pro- 
fessed pacifists and the politicians who pandered to 
them are more responsible than any one else, except 
the pro-Germans. If, when the World War broke 
out, or at latest when the Lusitania was sunk, we had 
done our plain duty, we had then begun to build 



THE MAN WHO PAYS 197 

ships, field cannon and airplanes, and to train men 
exactly as we have been doing during the last year 
and a quarter, except that we should have done the 
work on a larger scale with more efficiency and with 
much less waste and extravagance. Remember that 
failure to provide great numbers of cannon and air- 
planes means that the infantry has to pay for it with 
a huge increase of slaughter. All the guns and air- 
planes we left unbuilt during the first three years of 
the war has meant so much more bloodshed, so many 
more Americans killed and crippled, not to speak of 
the tremendous loss of life to our allies. Moreover, 
when men in small numbers are put into battle, when 
only a few hundred thousand are forced to suffer 
heavy loss in doing work which two or three million 
men could have accomplished speedily and thor- 
oughly and with very little loss, the responsibility 
rests on those who prevented the preparation in 
-advance. If we had built quantities of ships and 
trained large numbers of men in advance, the World 
W^ar would have ended almost as soon as we entered, 
and an infinite amount of bloodshed would have been 
prevented. 

The best roll of our army overseas is the American 
roll of honor. These men have paid with their bodies 
for the safety of this Nation in the present and the 
future. They have died, and by their death have 
earned for the rest of us the right to hold our heads 
high with pride. But it is no less true that their 
blood has been shed, but their gallant lives have been 
spent because we did not prepare in advance. We 



198 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

did not prepare because Qur people were misled. For 
this misleading of the people the professional prof- 
iteers share the responsibility with the pro-Ger- 
mans, with sham sentimentalists, with the sordid, 
short-sighted materialists, and with all the politi- 
cians, publicists, and private citizens, rich or poor, 
whose vanity or folly or self-interest profited thereby. 
We ought not to remember this in any spirit of re- 
venge, but most certainly, unless we are worse than 
foolish, we shall remember it and other warnings to 
teach us how to. behave in the future, and as a very 
stern warning against again trusting to the leader- 
ship of the men thus responsible for the deaths of 
so many fine and fearless young Americans. 

Most of the men who are misled, and some of the 
men who misled them, have come frankly forward 
to admit their error. What is even more important, 
most of them have made the real atonement of deeds. 
They have, if young, themselves gone into the army, 
and if not young have sent their sons or permitted 
them to go into the army and fight in freedom's be- 
lated battle. All these men are paying their share of 
the joint payment in blood of the Nation. They are 
to be heartily respected. They are not seeking to 
profit by the valor and blood of others. 

So much for the men who pay; now for the men 
who profit. Some of these men profit in money. If 
such profit is excessive it is iniquitous. But a proper 
money profit is absolutely necessary, for no business 
can be permanent without profit any more than a 
working-man can permanently work without wages. 



THE MAN WHO PAYS ' 199 

The unpardonable profit is that of the man, espe- 
cially the rich man, who, having preached pacifism 
and unpreparedness, now, when war comes, sees 
brave men face a death which pacifism and unpre- 
paredness have made infinitely more probable while 
he himself and his sons profit by these other men's 
courage and sit at home in the ease and safety se- 
cured by the fact that these others face death. The 
worst profiteers in this country are the men and the 
sons of the men who decline to face the death which 
their own actions have made more probable for 
others. 

Unless in exceptional cases there is no need to 
discuss individuals in private life. But when a man 
seeks public office, it becomes a duty to discuss his 
record. Mr. Henry Ford is a candidate for United 
States Senator in Michigan. No man in this country 
strove harder in the cause of pacifism and unpre- 
paredness than he did during the vital two years and 
a half before this country went to war. He received 
the cordial applause of the peace-at-any-price people 
who were themselves, of course, efficiently playing 
the pro-German game. He is a multi-millionaire. If 
any of his kin are killed, their families are not 
merely guarded against poverty, but are sure of 
wealth. The son of Mr. Ford ought to feel it ab- 
solutely obligatory on him to go to the war. There 
is not in this country any other man who ought to 
feel it more honorably necessary to pay with his 
body, if necessary, to atone with his life for the 
dreadful wrong done this country by the preachers of 



200 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

pacifism and unpreparedness during the two years 
and a half that preceded our entry into the war. Yet 
it is announced in the press that Mr. Ford's son has 
obtained exemption from military ser\dce and is 
employed in the money-making business of his 
wealthy father. 

Mr. Ford's proper place is on the mourner's bench 
and not at the council board of the Nation. 



OUR DEBT TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE 

August i6, 1918 

Judge Ben Lindsey has recently written two or 
three striking pieces about what Great Britain has 
done and is doing in this war. Incidentally he points 
out how far ahead of us she now is in certain types 
of social legislation, such as that dealing with 
children. But the lesson he inculcates which is of 
most immediate concern is the giant part England 
has played in this war and the debt we owe to her 
because, in standing up for Belgium and France, she 
was really defending us during our days of folly when 
we followed the lead of our worst enemies, the paci- 
fists and pro-Germans. 

The English pacifists are, if anything, even more 
silly than our own. They did their best to make 
England keep out of this war. If they had succeeded 
the British Empire would for a few years have trod 
the broad, smooth road of peaceful and greedy in- 
famy and would then have tumbled into the bottom- 



OUR DEBT TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE 201 

less pit of utter destruction. But in August, 1914, 
Great Britain and the gallant overseas common- 
wealths which share her empire chose the hard path 
of immediate danger, of ultimate safety, and of high 
heroism. Thereby they saved their own souls and 
the bodies of their children, and in s.o doing rendered 
an inestimable service to us. 

England has raised an immense army which has 
fought in Europe, Asia, and Africa. If it were not 
for this army even the highly trained valor of the 
French could not have averted German victory. At 
the same time the British fleet has kept the seas free 
for the food and coal and munitions needed for the 
Allied people and armies and has furnished the trans- 
ports necessary to enable us to put under Pershing a 
force large enough to be of real consequence in the 
vitally important battle which has been raging for 
the last thirty days. If Great Britain had not been 
far-sighted enough to realize what her own welfare 
demanded when France was invaded, and if she had 
not been stirred to noble indignation by the Belgian 
horror, the whole civilized world would now have 
been cowering under the brutal dominion of Ger- 
many. If she had not controlled the seas, not an 
American battalion could have been sent to the aid 
of France as she struggled to save the soul of the 
world, and no help could have been given gallant 
Italy or any others of these Allied nations to whose 
stern fighting efficiency we owe it that this earth is 
still a place on which free men can live. 

We must stand by Great Britain precisely as we 



202 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

stand by our other allies — in the first place, by- 
waging the war with all our strength, and in the 
next place by seeing that the peace is of a kind which 
justifies them for all the sacrifices they have made. 
One item in waging the war ought to be insistence 
that every American of fighting age who resides in 
the British Empire and every Englishman of fight- 
ing age who resides in the United States be invari- 
ably put in either the British or the American armies. 
One item in making peace ought to be insistence that 
Britain keep every colony she has conquered from 
Germany, both in the South Seas and in Africa. 
Germany has behaved abominably in Africa. The 
course Germany has followed in Africa has made her 
a menace of evil to the Boer and British Africanders, 
and to return to her the colonies which have been 
taken from her, whether in Africa or Asia, by 
Australia or Great Britain, or by France or Japan or 
Belgium, would be a crime against civilization. 



THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD 

August 20, 191 8 

Every loyal American citizen in Michigan should 
read the last two numbers of Mr. George Harvey's 
War Weekly. In these numbers there are quotations 
from Mr. Henry Ford's speeches made two years ago 
and again since we entered the war. Mr. Ford has 
not questioned the accuracy of these quotations 
given by Mr. Harvey.. 



THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD 203 

Speaking of American flags over his own factory 
Mr. Ford said: " I don't believe in the flag. When 
the war is over these flags shall come down never to 
go up again." 

The Sedition Act, approved by President Wilson, 
inflicts a maximum punishment of twenty years in 
the penitentiary for any man who, while we are at 
war, utters " language intended to bring the flag 
of the United States into contempt or disrepute." 
During the last year many poor and ignorant men 
have been convicted and sentenced for using lan- 
guage thus forbidden by law. In my view the fact 
that Mr. Ford is an enormously wealthy man ought 
not to give him immunity from the law if he cannot 
show that he did not use the language quoted in the 
War Weekly. But whether or not amenable to the 
law, no patriotic American can afl"ord to put in the 
Senate, perhaps to help negotiate the peace treaty, a 
man who announces that as soon as peace comes he 
wishes to haul down the American flag and never 
again to hoist it. To send such a man to the Senate 
professing such sentiments under existing conditions 
would give the enemy a wholly wrong idea of the 
pacifist sentiment in our country. There is nothing 
in the world which would now help Germany as 
much, or give her so much heart in her struggle for 
the overthrow of liberty and democracy as the belief 
that men professing such sentiments would have part 
in the peace negotiations on behalf of this country. 

Among the further utterances of Mr. Ford (as 
given in the War Weekly) is one that he does " not 



204 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

believe In patriotism " and that he does not care any 
more for the United States " than for China or 
Hindustan." The man who does not beheve in 
patriotism is not fit to Hve in this country, still less 
to represent it in the Senate. If these words of Mr. 
Ford mean anything, then Mr. Ford is unpatriotic 
and has no more right to sit in the United States 
Senate than a Hindu or a Chinaman. Unless Mr. 
Ford can show that he never uttered these words no 
man worthy to be called an American, and least of 
all any religious or patriotic man, can afford to 
support him for the Senate. 

Mr. Ford has been given immensely valuable war 
contracts of the Government. No doubt he has ex- 
ecuted them as well as the thousands of other con- 
tractors who now render service to the Government 
for pay. But no service he can thus render the 
Government can offset the frightful damage he did 
our people by the lavish use he made of his enormous 
wealth in a gigantic and profoundly anti-American 
propaganda against preparedness and against our 
performance of international duty during the two 
and a half years before we entered the war. This 
crusade against righteousness included the sending 
of the ridiculous " peace ship " to Europe. This 
particular manifestation was too absurd even to do 
harm, but so far as it had any effect at all it encour- 
aged Germany to believe that we were as neutral 
between right and wrong as Pontius, and that as far 
as we were concerned she could safely proceed with 
wrongdoing because we held the scales of judgment 



THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD 205 

even between the wrongdoer and his victim. The 
crusade also included an extraordinary series of 
advertisements issued long after the Lusitania was 
sunk, in which Mr. Ford violently opposed and de- 
nounced preparedness, advocated and approved the 
McLemore resolutions, and announced that it was 
our duty to keep out of war; and not merely himself 
kept silent about the wrongdoing of Germany, but 
assailed those who set forth this wrongdoing on the 
ground that they " had bred racial hatred by the 
printing of incendiary news stories and articles." 
It may well be doubted whether this propaganda did 
not do more damage to the American people than 
the propaganda carried on at the same time by 
Ambassador Bernstorff. 

If we had seen our duty and had fully prepared 
during these two and a half years, either we would 
never have had to enter the war or we would have 
brought it to a close immediately after we entered it. 
The best and bravest of the young men of the Nation 
are now paying with their blood for our unprepared- 
ness and therefore for the pacific propaganda quite 
as much as for the pro-German propaganda carried 
on In this country during the two and a half years 
before we entered the war. But wealthy Mr. Ford's 
son is not among these men. He is of draft age. He 
applied for exemption. The local board refused his 
application. He applied to the President. The 
President did not act for two months. Then the 
revised draft regulations were promulgated, and Mr. 
Ford was excepted under the deferred or exempted 



2o6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

class which included a married man with a child, 
however wealthy that man might be. He has exer- 
cised his legal right. Very many thousands of young 
Americans, men of small means who are not sons of 
multi-millionaires, have declined to take advantage 
of this legal right. They have left their wives and 
babies to go to war for a great ideal, for love of 
country, for love of liberty and of civilization. But 
Mr. Ford's son stays at home. These other young 
Americans face death and endure unspeakable hard- 
ships and misery and fatigue for the sake of America 
and have surrendered all hope of money-getting, of 
comfort and of safety. But young Mr. Ford, in ease 
and safety, is in the employ of his wealthy father. 

In private relations I understand that Mr. Ford 
is an amiable man. But I am not dealing with him in 
his private relations. I am discussing him as a candi- 
date for high office. We are bound truthfully to set 
forth what we believe will be the effect of his elec- 
tion, and therefore we are bound to say that it 
would be damaging to the United States and would 
be encouraging to Germany. No patriotic American 
should support Mr. Ford. 

SPEED UP THE WORK FOR THE ARMY 

AND GIVE ALL WHO ENTER IT 

FAIR PLAY 

August 23, 1918 

Our Government must learn that needless delay Is 
worse than a blunder. We are sending troops to 



SPEED UP THE WORK FOR THE ARMY 207 

Siberia. This is good, but it would have been ten 
times better to have sent them last spring when the 
need was precisely as evident as it is now. The Ad- 
ministration is now preparing to ask Congress to 
arrange for putting between three and four million 
men in France by next July. Six months ago our best 
military advisers and our most far-sighted civilian 
leaders were urging that we prepare to put five 
million men in France by next March. The delay 
has been absolutely needless and may be very harm- 
ful. When last spring the demand for five million 
men was being Incessantly urged, President Wilson 
treated it as merely a case for competitive rhetoric, 
and asked, with dramatic effect, why we should 
limit the number at all. But he actually has limited 
it to a much smaller number at a much later date. 
Therefore let there at least be no further delay. And 
above all let us not be misled by the persons who say 
that Germany will make peace before next spring. 
Our business is to act on the assumption that we 
shall have to put forth our utmost effort next spring 
and not to take any unnecessary chances. 

The Government is now very properly proposing 
to enlarge the draft age limits to include all the men 
of fighting age, all the men of the ages which fur- 
nished the enormous majority of the soldiers of the 
Civil War. The number of men in the excepted 
classes should be greatly reduced. There are too 
many exceptions. It is earnestly to be hoped that 
the plan will include the institution of universal 
obligatory military training of all our young men 



2o8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

of eighteen to twenty years old as a permanent 
policy. 

But we ought not to adopt the plan recently 
proposed for special advantages to be given by the 
Government to young men who go to college and 
take certain special courses with a view to becoming 
officers. This would amount to giving a special 
privilege to persons with money enough to send their 
boys to college in order to have them escape the 
draft and secure commissions. This is not fair. It 
means giving a privilege to money. There is no 
excuse for giving such a preference to young men of 
eighteen or nineteen at this time when we have been 
at war eighteen months. There is still need to give 
some of the older men a special chance to train. But 
there is no such need in the case of men under 
twenty-one. 

There was every reason of sound public policy at 
the outset of the war to take advantage of the fore- 
thought and self-denial of the young men who at the 
Plattsburg and similar camps had at their own ex- 
pense prepared themselves before the war began, and 
w^hen, owing to the failure of the Government to do 
its duty, they were the only men who did prepare. 
There has been good reason for similar camps for 
young men during the last eighteen months before 
our general training camps began to show their full 
results. But from now on every young officer should 
be chosen on his merits from the men who enter the 
army in the ranks. Only the men who show their 
fitness, by whatever tests are deemed necessary 



' SENATOR LODGE'S NOBLE SPEECH 209 

after service in the ranks, should be sent to officers* 
schools, and money should play no part whatever in 
the matter. 



SENATOR LODGE'S NOBLE SPEECH 

September i, 1918 

Senator Lodge's speech dealing with the principles 
for which we are fighting and setting forth in detailed 
outline the kind of peace which alone will mean the 
peace of victory was a really noble speech. Nothing 
is easier, and from the national standpoint as dis- 
tinguished from the standpoint of personal benefit to 
the speaker, nothing is less useful than a speech of 
such glittering generalities that almost anybody can 
interpret it in almost any manner. Only a great 
statesman possesses the courage, the knowledge, and 
the power of expression to set forth in convincing 
fashion the detailed statement of the objects which 
must be attained if such a war as that in which we 
are engaged is to be crowned by a peace wholly 
worth the terrible cost of life and happiness caused 
by the war. This is the service which Senator Lodge 
has rendered to this Nation and to our allies. 

From time to time in our history the Senate has 
rendered services of exceptional magnitude to the 
Nation. Never in our history has it rendered greater 
service than during the last nine months. The great- 
est men who have ever sat in it, men such as Clay 
and Webster and Calhoun and Benton, did not 



210 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

stand forth in leadership more clearly than a dozen 
of the Senators who, during the last nine months, 
have fearlessly and disinterestedly borne the burden 
of speeding up the war and endeavoring to place our 
international relations on exactly the right lines. 

These leaders have in actual fact adjourned 
politics. They have considered only their patriotic 
duty in all matters concerning this war and our rela- 
tions with our allies and our enemies. The most 
efficient service toward speeding up the war and 
enabling this Nation to do its duty that has been 
rendered by any civilian public servants of the 
Nation is the service rendered by Senator Chamber- 
lain and the Senators, both Democrats and Repub- 
licans, who acted with him on the Military Affairs 
Committee in the investigation of the War Depart- 
ment last winter. Within the last fortnight a service 
of similar character has been rendered by Senator 
Thomas and his associates in both parties on the sub- 
committee which has at last put before the people 
the truth about the breakdown of our aircraft 
programme. The fact that this summer we have put 
masses of armed men into France is primarily due 
to Senator Chamberlain and the Senators of both 
parties who have acted with him. The fact that 
next summer we shall at last back up American 
troops with American airplanes will be due primarily 
to Senator Thomas and his associates. 



APPLIED PATRIOTISM 211 



APPLIED PATRIOTISM 
September 8, 191 8 

The official record of the Illinois branch of the 
United Mine Workers of America furnishes an in- 
structive lesson in applied patriotism. The presi- 
dent of the branch is Mr. Frank Farrington. The 
United Mine Workers are affiliated with the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor. 

President Farrington's circulars to the Illinois 
mine workers set forth the need and the justice of 
this war and the duty of patriotic Americans in the 
most straightforward and clear-cut fashion. He 
states that this is the war for liberty and humanity 
and for American rights, and that there rests " upon 
every American and upon every man who has par- 
taken of America's bounty the solemn obligation of 
loyally doing their part to win victory for the cause 
America represents." He promises the mine workers 
that their rights shall be protected and secured, but 
insists that they shall lend every energy to increase 
the output of coal so as to help our army at the front, 
which, as he finely says, includes " sons of the rich 
and sons of the poor men who love life as one, but 
who prefer death to life without liberty and who 
have made common cause and entered the lists in 
answer to the Nation's need." 

The improper practices are specifically pointed 
out and condemned, such as shutting down mines in 
violation of agreement in order to force some desired 



212- ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

condition, or making improper restrictions to curtail 
production. The appeal is solemnly made to, and on 
behalf of, the miners' union that there must be full 
service to the Nation and no shirking of duty, and 
that no agreement into which the union enters shall 
be treated as a scrap of paper, but shall be in good 
faith fulfilled. President Farrington in his official 
circulars lays constantly increasing stress upon the 
seriousness of the obligation resting upon the miners 
to aid and sustain the Allied armies in their fight for 
the freedom of humanity by hard, steady work and 
by increasing the output of coal. He condemns with 
genuine loftiness of feeling and expression all who 
fail to give the utmost help to the men who at the 
front are doing so much and suffering so much. 

The Illinois mine workers number about ninety 
thousand members. They are divided into three 
hundred and twenty local unions. Of these I have 
figures from only one hundred and twenty. They 
have sent over four thousand men into the army and 
navy of the United States, have purchased over two 
million dollars' worth of Liberty bonds, $700,000 of 
War Savings Stamps, and have contributed over 
$90,000 to the Red Cross and over $20,000 to other 
war funds. 

The Illinois mine workers have made a fine show- 
ing in applied patriotism. 



GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI-BOLSHEVISTS 213 

GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI -BOLSHEVISTS 

OF KANSAS 

September 12, 191 8 

The absolute prerequisite for successful self-govern- 
ment in any people is the power of self-restraint 
which refuses to follow either the wild-eyed extrem- 
ists of radicalism or the dull-eyed extremists of 
reaction. Either set of extremists will wreck the 
Nation just as certainly as the other. The Nation 
capable of self-government must show the Abraham 
Lincoln quality of refusing to go with either. The 
dreadful fall which has befallen Russia is due to the 
fact that when her people cast off the tyranny of the 
autocracy, they did not have sufficient self-control 
and common sense to avoid rushing into the gulf of 
Bolshevist anarchy. 

In this country there are plenty of highbrow 
Bolsheviki who like to think of themselves as intel- 
lectuals, and who in parlors and at pink teas preach 
Bolshevism as a fad. They are fatuously ignorant 
that it may be a dangerous fad. Some of them 
are mere make-believe, sissy Bolsheviki, almost or 
quite harmless. Others are sincere and foolish fa- 
natics, who mean well and who do not realize that 
their doctrines tend toward moral disintegration. 
But there are practical Bolsheviki in this country 
who are in no sense highbrows. The I.W.W. and the 
Non-Partisan League, just as long and so far as 
its members submit to the dominion of leaders like 



214 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

Mr. Townley, represent the forces that under Lenine 
and Trotzky have brought ruin to Russia. If these 
organizations obtained power here, they would cast 
this country into the same abyss with Russia. 

The I.W.W. activities may have been officially set 
forth by the Chicago jury which found the I.W.W. 
leaders guilty of treasonable practices. These leaders 
protested that they were only trying to help " the 
wage slave of to-day," and had not taken German 
money. But the jury found them guilty as charged. 
The American people, when fully awake and aroused, 
will tolerate neither treason nor anarchy. No 
Americans are more patriotic than the honest 
American labor men, and these above all had cause 
to rejoice in the verdict. Undoubtedly there are 
plenty of poor ignorant men who join the I.W.W. 
because they feel they do not receive justice. We 
should all of us actively unite in the effort to right 
any wrongs from which these men suffer. But we 
should set our faces like flint against such criminal 
leadership as that of the I.W.W. 

The Non-Partisan League endeavored to ally 
itself with the I.W.W. since we entered the war. 
When the League was started, I felt much sympathy 
with its avowed purposes. I hope for and shall wel- 
come wisely radical action on behalf of the farmer. 
But only destruction to all of us can come from the 
venomous class hatred preached by the present 
leadership of the League. Some of its leaders have 
been convicted and imprisoned for treasonable 
activities. Some of the League's representatives 



GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI-BOLSHEVISTS 215 

have been actively pro-Germans. Some are Social- 
ists or Socialist-Anarchists. For the first six months 
of the war and until it became too dangerous, they 
were openly against the war, against our allies, and 
for Germany. The only half-secret alliance between 
these leaders and certain high Democratic politicians 
is deeply discreditable to the latter. The victory of 
the League in its recent efforts to gain control of the 
Republican Party in Minnesota and Montana would 
have given immense strength to the pro-German and 
Bolshevist element throughout the country and its 
defeat was a matter of rejoicing to all right-minded 
and patriotic men. 

Mr. Townley's leadership in its moral purpose and 
national effect entitles him to rank with Messrs. 
Lenine and Trotzky, and the utterances of the 
League's official organ, especially in its appeals to 
class hatred, puts the official representatives of the 
League squarely in the clan with the Bolshevist 
leaders who have done such evil in Russia. 

I have before me an official letter from the League 
written in January last refusing to cooperate in non- 
political work for the benefit of the farmers, saying, 
" This organization is a political one, the farmers 
being organized for the purpose of controlling legis- 
lation in their own interests." In other words, the 
title, Non-Partisan, is a piece of pure hypocrisy, and 
its league is really partisan in the narrowest and 
worst sense. Americans should organize politically 
as Americans and not as bankers, or lawyers, or 
farmers, or wage- workers. To organize politically on 



2i6 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

the basis adopted by the League is thoroughly anti- 
American and unpatriotic, and if copied generally 
by our citizens, would mean the creation in this 
country of rival political parties based on cynically 
brutal class selfishness. 

I have no doubt that the rank and file of the 
members of the League are good, honest people who 
have been misled. I am certain that there has been 
much neglect of the rights of the farmers and that 
it is a high duty for this country to begin a con- 
structive, practical agricultural policy. But no good 
American can support the League while it is domi- 
nated by its present leadership. The Kansans who 
have joined to fight the League because it represents 
Bolshevism are rendering a patriotic service to 
America. 



THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN 

September 17, 191 8 

The Government of the United States is asking us 
Americans, is asking us, the citizens of the United 
States, to subscribe to the Fourth Liberty Loan, a 
bigger loan than any yet issued. It is our duty to 
back up the Government by floating the loan. More- 
over, the performance of this duty should be treated 
by us as a high privilege. It opens to us a fine oppor- 
tunity to put our shoulders with all the strength we 
have into the great shove which is pushing the 
German barrier back across the Rhine. 



THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN 217 

The Liberty bonds are the best of all possible in- 
vestments. Their security and their interest returns 
give them a peculiar position. Moreover, every one 
can invest in big or little amounts, exactly as his 
resources permit. All the people of this country can 
now become bondholders if they wish. Therefore, 
all investors in the bonds will get benefits, but what 
is vastly more important, they will give benefits. 
They will therefore render service to the country. 

We Americans are not, and must not permit 
ourselves to become, swayed by question of material 
gain in this war. We must think primarily of our 
duties. We must keep our minds fixed on what we 
owe to others, and what we owe to ourselves. We 
owe a service to humanity. Our sons and brothers 
at the front pay this service in blood. The rest of us 
must pay it in money. 

Commensurate with the great resources and un- 
paralleled prosperity with which our Nation has been 
blessed, we owe all the more because for three years 
the debt accumulated, while other nations were bear- 
ing the burden for us. We thank God we have begun 
to pay. From every village and city of every state 
the best of our young men are streaming across the 
Atlantic to join the victorious army under Foch and 
Pershing. The men and women of America are keep- 
ing mill and shipyard and munition factory and mine 
busy to the limit, so that the troops may not fail 
nor the supplies on which they depend be lacking. 

All this is not one whit more than we ought to do; 
it is what we owe to the world and owe to ourselves. 



2i8 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

We are glad and proud to do it. Let us, as part pay- 
ment of our great debt, subscribe and oversubscribe 
to the bonds of the Fourth Liberty Loan. This is 
a service which Hes within the ability of the poorest 
of us. It is the duty and privilege of every right 
American. Every dollar put into Liberty loans is a 
dollar working for the downfall of the system of 
greed and treachery, of tyranny and callous brutality 
which has drenched the world in blood. 

Americans are not quitters. The Kaiser's troops 
cannot stop our men at the front. Nothing must be 
permitted to stop the flow into the treasury of the 
money with which we back up these men. Sloth and 
easy living have no place in America now. We must 
give, give to the utmost. If putting our money at 
the disposal of the Government requires us to work 
harder and live more simply, we shall be the better 
for it. Let us buy these Liberty bonds to the utmost 
of our capacity and thereby show the men at the 
front that the people at home will back them to the 
limit. 



FAIR PLAY AND NO POLITICS 

September 20, 191 8 

A Democratic member of the Senate has introduced 
a resolution to investigate the primary campaign 
expenses of certain Republican candidates for the 
Senate, including Commander Truman Newberry, 
whose recent triumph over Mr. Henry Ford in the 



/ 



FAIR PLAY AND NO POLITICS 219 

Michigan Republican primaries was greeted with 
heartfelt thanks by every sincere and far-sighted 
American patriot. 

This Senate, which comes to an end on March 4 
next, has the same, and only the same right to in- 
vestigate the election conduct of candidates for the 
Senate which comes into existence on March 4 
that it has to investigate the campaign conduct of 
any other candidates for office. 

Moreover, any such proposed investigation under- 
taken on the eve of an election is tainted with bad 
faith unless it is conducted with conspicuous fairness 
and impartiality and is undertaken at once so that it 
can be finished at least a month before the elections. 
Personally, I shall be glad if the election expenses or 
any other conduct of any of the candidates be in- 
vestigated, provided that the investigation be under- 
taken at once and finished within the next fortnight, 
and provided that it be entirely impartial. There- 
fore, it must deal comprehensively with all serious 
charges affecting the desirability of candidates as 
governmental representatives of the American people 
at this time. 

If the men backing the proposal are acting in good 
faith they will investigate Mr. Ford's record on the 
following points in order to determine his fitness to 
represent patriotic Americans at this time. They 
will find out how much money he spent on the peace 
ship, and on his lavishly expensive newspaper adver- 
tising campaign against preparedness, and against 
our standing up for Belgium's rights, and against 



220 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

our taking action about Germany's sinking the Lusi- 
tania and her other assaults on us, and in favor of 
the McLemore resolution. This was part of the 
great pacifist campaign of which another part, as our 
government investigations show, was financed by 
the German authorities themselves or by their affili- 
ated societies in this country. 

The investigation should include Mr. Ford's con- 
tributions in the last presidential campaign and the 
names of the candidates he supported, for his politics 
seem to have been purely personal and pacifist. 

Moreover, the investigation should include a full 
examination of the justification for Mr. Ford's aiding 
and abetting his son Edsell in escaping draft and 
staying at home when the great majority of young 
Americans of his age are eagerly striving for places 
of honor and peril at the front. Mr, Ford is an enor- 
mously wealthy man. Mr. Newberr}^ is not. Mr. 
Newberry himself at once entered the military serv- 
ice of the United States. His two sons have wives 
and children, but they immediately entered the 
service, striving eagerly to get to the front. Mr. 
Edsell Ford waited until he was drafted, then fought 
hard for an exemption, which the local board dis- 
allowed. He succeeded, however, in escaping service 
and is at home. 

Unless the investigation takes up these matters, it 
will be stamped with the stamp of unworthy and im- 
proper partisanship. The simple truth is that all 
patriotic Americans rejoice in the nomination and 
will rejoice in the election at this time of such 



SPIES AND SLACKERS 221 

Americans as Mr. Newberry in Michigan and Mr. 
Medill McCormick in Illinois. 



SPIES AND SLACKERS 

September 24, 191 8 

Mercy to the German spy or pacifist slacker in 
America is foul injustice to the American soldier in 
France and to his brother, who is preparing to go to 
France. Our Government has been altogether too 
weak in dealing with the pacifist slackers and so- 
called conscientious objectors. It has actually issued 
elaborate instructions for and to these creatures 
practically telling them how to escape doing the duty 
which all patriotic Americans are proudly eager to 
perform. 

There is not the slightest excuse for such w^eakness. 
No man has any right to remain in a free country like 
ours if he refuses, whether conscientiously or un- 
conscientiously, to do the duties of peace and of war 
which are necessary if it is to be kept free. The true 
lovers of peace recognize their duty to fight for 
freedom. The Society of Friends has furnished the 
same large proportion of soldiers for this war that it 
did for the Civil War. 

It is all wrong to permit conscientious objectors to 
remain in camp or military posts or to go back to 
their homes. They should be treated in one of three 
ways: First, demand of them military service, ex- 
cept the actual use of weapons with intent to kill, 



222 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

and if they refuse to render this service treat them as 
criminals and imprison them at hard labor; second, 
put them in labor battalions and send them to 
France behind the lines, where association with 
soldiers might have a missionary effect on them and 
cause them to forget their present base creed and rise 
to worthy levels in an atmosphere of self-sacrifice 
and of service and struggle for great ideals; third, if 
both of the above procedures are regarded as too 
drastic, intern them with alien enemies and send 
them permanently out of the country as soon as 
possible. 

As for the spies, there is no question as to the 
treatment needed. They should be shot or hung. 
They are public enemies and this is war-time and 
they should no more be dealt with by the civil law 
than the enemy armies should be so dealt with. The 
German spies and secret agents and dynamiters and 
murderers in this country are as much a part of 
Germany as the soldiers of von Hindenburg. Bis- 
marck employed thirty thousand of them to dis- 
organize Germany's foes fifty years ago, and now 
Germany is employing them by the hundred thou- 
sand. They are as formidable as the visible German 
army. It was these German spies, agents, and propa- 
gandists who, in 191 7, disintegrated and destroyed 
Russia, and inflicted a crushing disaster on Italy, 
and conducted the most dangerous intrigue in 
France, and aided and abetted the British pacifists. 

In this country Senator Overman has estimated 
their number at four hundred thousand, and Mn 



SPIES AND SLACKERS 223 

Flynn, the recently resigned chief of the secret serv- 
ice, has put them at a quarter of a million. Our 
official government reports have shown that in 
obedience to orders from the German Government 
they have carried on in all hostile and even neutral 
countries a systematic warfare by means of aiding 
pacifists' movements, inciting strikes, fomenting dis- 
loyalty, and employing direct action dynamiters and 
murderers. They have received aid and cooperation, 
conscientiously and unconscientiously, by many 
evils in pacifist and Bolshevist societies and in 
organizations like the I.W.W. and Non-Partisan 
League. 

The activities of the German spies, agents, and 
sympathizers vary from mere disloyal utterances, 
which the Attorney-General of the United States has 
stated to be the cause of most of the disorder in the 
country, up to seeking to corrupt our soldiers and 
practicing sabotage in our munitions works and 
factories for war materials. All offenders of the latter 
t^^pe, wherever committed, can, under the existing 
law, be tried by court-martial and executed, and this 
is the proper course to follow. It was the course 
followed under Lincoln's administration, which is 
one of the reasons why Lincoln's administration 
differed so markedly from Buchanan's. 

The former chief of the secret service says that 
there are a quarter of a million of these German spies 
and agents in this country. We have ample law to 
warrant these being punished with death by sum- 
mary court-martial, under military law as military 



224 ^ ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

enemies. We have been at war eighteen months, but 
not one spy has thus been punished. This means 
grave remissness in the performance of our duty. 



QUIT PLAYING FAVORITES 

September 30, 191 8 

It is announced that the young men of eighteen or 
nineteen included in the draft will be sent free to 
college by the Government and will there be given 
the chance to earn commissions and escape service 
in the ranks. 

Either this represents sheer deception or it will 
mean gross favoritism. We now have plenty of 
young men who have been serving in the ranks for 
nearly eighteen months. Scores of thousands of 
these left college to go or had just finished high 
school when they went. All these boys, whether they 
have or have not been to college, are entitled to the 
first chance for commissions on equal terms with one 
another, except that preference should be given those 
who have been engaged in the fighting overseas. 
Almost all the second lieutenancies should now be 
filled in this manner by promotion from the ranks. 
To give to boys now about to enter college the pref- 
erence over those who have actually served in the 
ranks, and especially over those who have actually 
faced death overseas, would be a cruel injustice. 

But the injustice would be equally great among 
the new recruits themselves. It is wholly illusory for 



QUIT PLAYING FAVORITES 225 

the Government to say it will send to college all who 
wish to go. The average working-man or small 
farmer has not had money enough to educate his son 
so that the boy can now enter college without 
further training. Yet that boy may have in him the 
qualities of leadership which especially fit him for 
command. Such a working-man or farmer ought to 
wish, and does wish, that his son be tested on his 
merits by actual service in the ranks, alongside of all 
other boys, no favors being shown either him or 
them. For the Government at this time to send some 
of these boys to college and thus give them a start 
over the bulk of their fellows represents privilege 
given to money and is thoroughly unfair. 

For the two years before we entered the war the 
only important piece of preparedness was that of the 
men who at their own expense went to the Plattsburg 
training camp established by General Wood, and 
when Germany forced us into war it was impera- 
tively necessary at once to establish many additional 
camps of this kind or we should have had no officers 
whatever for our army. It is still advisable to keep a 
few training camps for older men whose age and 
qualifications especially fit them for certain kinds of 
service. But it is not wise nor right for the Govern- 
ment now to put certain especially favored classes of 
boys of eighteen and nineteen into college with a 
view to giving them an advantage over their fellows. 
This is undemocratic. It is not fair to the other boys 
of their age who are not in the army. It is exceed- 
ingly unfair and unjust to the young men who are 



226 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

already enlisted in the army, and especially to those 
who have seen service overseas. 

From now on no young officer should be appointed 
saving after service in the ranks out of which he is 
chosen by fair test in comparison with his fellows as 
fit to enter an officers' training camp. Moreover, 
there should be a resolute effort to give preference to 
the men who have served in the front in France, the 
very men who are now apt to be neglected. 



WAR AIMS AND PEACE PROPOSALS 
October 12, 191 8 

Our war aim ought to be unconditional surrender of 
Germany and of her vassal allies, Austria and Tur- 
key. We ought not to consider any peace proposals 
from Germany until this war aim has been accom- 
plished by the victorious arms of our allies and 
ourselves. 

It is worthy of note that the Central Powers show 
a greedy eagerness to accept the so-called " fourteen 
points " laid down by President Wilson. I earnestly 
hope that when the time for discussing peace pro- 
posals comes, we shall ourselves repudiate some of 
these fourteen points, and that we shall insist on 
having all of them put into plain and straightforward 
language before we assent to any of them. Let us 
remember that Congress shares with the President 
the right to make treaties and that the people are 
bound to insist that they, the people, are the ulti- 



WAR'ATMS AND PEACE PROPOSALS 227 

mate arbiters and that their will in the peace treaty 
is followed by both the President and the Congress. 

For example, what does that one of the fourteen 
points referring to the freedom of the seas mean? 
If It means what Germany interprets it to mean, 
then every decent American ought to be against It. 
The kind of freedom of the seas upon which it Is 
really vital to count Is freedom from murder. Inter- 
national law at present condemns exactly the kind of 
murder which Germany practiced In the case of the 
Lusltania and in hundreds of other cases, and is still 
practicing. We ought to make her atone heavily for 
such conduct and explicitly renounce It before we 
ever discuss any other kind of freedom of the seas. 

Again, we ought to know just what the President 
means by freedom of commercial Intercourse. If he 
means that he proposes to allow Germany to dump 
her manufactures on us without restriction, we ought 
to be against it. We ought to Insist on keeping In our 
hands the complete right to handle our tariff as the 
vital interests of our own citizens, and especially our 
own working-men, demand. 

Again, what is meant by the league of nations? 
If it means that Germany, Austria, Turkey, and 
Russia, as at present constituted, are to have the 
say-so about America's future destiny, we ought to 
be against It. They would treat any agreement with 
us as a scrap of paper wherever it suited their inter- 
ests, and we ought to realize this fact. Moreover, we 
already belong to a de facto league of nations which 
is a going concern. Let us stand by our allies before 



228 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

entering into a league with our enemies. Therefore, 
let us at once declare war on Turkey. Any such 
league is of value only if all its members are willing 
to make war on the same offenders, and the culpable 
failure of our Government to make war on Turkey 
and Bulgaria makes it absurd and hypocritical for us 
to promise to enter such a league in the future until 
this failure is confessed and atoned for. And let us 
at once send Major-General Wood and fifty thou- 
sand men to aid the Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia and 
establish our front well to the west of the Ural 
Mountains. 

Again, the talk of merely giving autonomy to the 
subject races of Austria amounts to betrayal of the 
Czecho-Slovaks, the Jugo-Slavs, the Italians, and 
the Rumanians. The first should be given their in- 
dependence and the other three united to the nations 
with which they really belong. Moreover, it is a 
betrayal of civilization to leave the Turk in Europe 
and fail to free the Armenians and the other subject 
races of Turkey. 

Again, let us define what is meant by abolishing 
secret diplomacy. If it means that the Administra- 
tion is to renounce the system of secret and furtive 
diplomacy which it now perseveres in concerning 
what has happened in Mexico, Haiti, and San 
Domingo, I heartily agree; but I do not see why it 
needs an international mandate before it tells our 
people the truth in these matters. Moreover, before 
it undertakes a fresh agreement, let it explain why 
for two years it kept secret from our people the full 



PERMANENT PREPAREDNESS 229 

knowledge it had of Germany's conduct and attitude 
toward us, including all the matters set forth in 
Ambassador Gerard's books. The American Nation 
has never seen such secret diplomacy practiced by 
its Government as it has seen during the last five 
years. 

It is evident, before these fourteen points are ac- 
cepted as the basis for peace discussion, they should 
be stated in such straightforward language that we 
may understand what they mean. The prime neces- 
sities at present are simplicity of language and the 
squaring of deeds with words. The thing we do not 
need is adroit and supple rhetoric which can be in- 
terpreted to mean anything or nothing. 



PERMANENT PREPAREDNESS AND 

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 

October 15, 191 8 

The vital military need of this country as regards its 
future international relations is the immediate adop- 
tion of the policy of permanent preparedness based 
on universal training. This is its prime duty from 
the standpoint of American nationalism and patriot- 
ism. Then, as an addition or supplement to, but 
under no conditions as substitute for, the policy of 
permanent preparedness, we can afford cautiously 
to enter into and try out the policy of a league of 
nations. There is no difficulty whatever in prattling 
cheerfully about such a league or in winning applause 



230 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

by rhetoric concerning it prior to the effort to make 
it work in practice; but there will be much difficulty 
in making it work at all when any serious strain 
comes, and it will prove entirely unworkable if the 
effort is made to unload upon it, in the name of inter- 
nationalism, duties which in the present state of the 
world will be efficiently performed by the free na- 
tions only if they perform them as national duties. 

In a recent adverse, but courteous and friendly 
article on my attitude in this matter which appeared 
in a great daily paper, the following language was 
used: " The colonel is letting himself be bothered, 
irritated, and sidetracked by fools. There is no way 
of preventing a fool from saying that he is in favor of 
the league of nations. The American people will be 
making up their minds about the league of nations 
and about permanent preparedness. They will be 
told by certain sorts of pacifists that if they accept 
the league they can safely reject preparedness. They 
will be told that the two ideas are opposites." 

The ** certain sort of pacifist " who has made this 
statement to the people of the United States is the 
President of the United States in the now famous 
" fourteen points " which he enunciated last Janu- 
ary. He advocated as one part of his plan the league 
or association of nations, as he has elsewhere advo- 
cated it, and he advocated as another part of his 
plan " the guarantees that national armaments will 
be reduced to the lowest point consistent with do- 
mestic safety." Unless this language was used with 
intent to deceive, domestic safety must mean merely 



HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES 231 

freedom from riot, and the President's proposal is 
that America's national preparedness be limited to 
a police force to prevent domestic disorder. There- 
fore, the President has told the American people 
that if they accept the league they can safely reject 
preparedness. 

The President may change his mind, and I sin- 
cerely hope he will do so. Until he does so it is the 
duty of every sincere American patriot to lay far 
more emphasis on the onerous and indispensable 
duty of national preparedness than on the wholly 
untested scheme of a league of nations, which the 
President has presented as an alternative. I heartily 
favor true internationalism as an addition to, but 
never as substitute for, a fervid and intensely patri- 
otic nationalism. I will gladly back any wise and 
honest effort to create a league of nations, but only 
on condition that it is treated as an addition to, and 
not as a substitute for, the full preparedness of our 
own strength for our own defense. 



HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES OF 
MUDDY MEANING 

October 17, 191 8 

A KEEN observer of what is now happening in the 
world writes me that there is very grave danger that 
this country will be cheated out of the right kind of 
peace if our people remain fatuously content to 
accept high-sounding phrases of muddy meaning, 



232 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

instead of clear-cut and truthful statements of just 
what we demand and just what we intend to do. 
^ The recent action of President Wilson in connec- 
tion with Germany has shown the imperative need 
of our people informing themselves of his announced 
purpose and keeping track of what he does toward 
the achievement of this purpose. Therefore, we 
should insist upon the purpose being stated in under- 
standable fashion and being adhered to after it has 
been stated. This is n't the President's war. It is 
the people's war. The peace will not be a satis- 
factory peace unless it is the people's peace. As a 
people we have no right to permit the President to 
commit us to that of which we do not approve or 
to that which, after honest effort, we are unable to 
understand. 

President Wilson's first communication to the 
German Government, if words mean anything, 
meant an effort to treat on the basis of his so-called 
" fourteen points." The German Government an- 
swered that it accepted these fourteen points and 
approved of them. This made them public property, 
and it behooves the Americans to examine them. I 
believe that such an examination will show the 
American people that their meaning is so muddy 
that we should insist upon their being clearly defined 
before we in any way accept them as ours. When the 
peace terms come to be reduced to action, we cannot 
afford to accept empty competitive rhetoric for 
straightforward plain dealing. 

As regards some of the points, either the meaning 



HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES 233 

IS so muddy as to be wholly incomprehensible or else 
the proposals are very treacherous. The fourth 
article, for example, proposes guarantees for the 
reduction of national armaments to the lowest point 
consistent with domestic safety. If this article 
means anything, it means that this Nation, for 
instance, is only to keep whatever armed forces are 
necessary to police the country in the event of 
domestic disturbance. Now, let our people face 
what this really implies. It is a proposal that we 
give up our navy, which, of course, cannot be used 
for such police purposes, and that we give up all of 
our army that could be used against a foreign foe. 
And according to point fourteen of his address to 
Congress of January 8 last, and according to point 
three in his speech of September 2"] last, this lack of 
armament on our part is to be supplied by mutual 
guarantees of political independence and territorial 
integrity within the league of nations covering the 
world. 

Now, such guarantees are precisely and exactly 
the scraps of paper to which the German Chancellor 
likened them when his Government tore up those 
affecting Belgium. The proposal of President Wilson 
is that this country shall put itself in the position of 
Belgium; shall trust to guarantees precisely such as 
those to which Belgium trusted four and one quarter 
years ago, and he also proposes, as far as his meaning 
can be made out at all, that the very powers that 
treated these guarantees as scraps of paper in the 
case of Belgium shall be among the powers to whose 



234 . ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

guarantee we are to trust to the exclusion of all 
preparation for our own self-defense. All nations are 
to be asked to render themselves helpless with fatu- 
ous indifference to the obvious fact that every weak- 
minded nation which accepted and acted in the 
proposal would be at the mercy of every ruthless and 
efficient nation that chose to treat the proposal as a 
scrap of paper. 

I gravely doubt whether a more silly or more 
mischievous plan was ever seriously proposed by the 
ruler of a great nation. Yet, this is exactly the plan 
to which President Wilson, by his correspondence 
with Germany, has sought definitely to commit the 
United States. If his words do not mean exactly 
what is above set forth, then their meaning is so 
muddy that no two disinterested outsiders would be 
warranted in interpreting them the same way. 

There is small cause for wonder that Germany 
eagerly accepted and made her own President 
Wilson's fourteen points to which he, without any 
warrant whatever, seemed to commit this Nation. 
Incidentally I may add that Mr. Wilson has at 
different times enunciated at least as many other 
points, some of them contradictory to the fourteen 
which he enumerated in January last. The outburst 
of popular indignation led by such men as Senators 
Lodge, Poindexter, and Thomas, which forced him 
to repudiate the negotiations which he had begun 
with Germany, should be supplemented by a resolute 
insistence upon the duty of the American public to 
inform itself as to what it wishes in the peace before 



HIGH-SOUNDING PHRASES 235 

the President, without authority, commits it to any 
peace proposal, and above all to peace proposals 
which may mean anything or nothing. 

Secretary McAdoo, with fine family loyalty, an- 
nounced that the acceptance by Germany of the" 
fourteen points would have meant Germany's un- 
conditional surrender. He might as well have said 
that the acceptance of disunion and the perpetuation 
of slavery' in 1864 would have meant a surrender by 
the Confederate states. Not only Germany, but 
every pacifist and pro-German here at home, hailed 
the fourteen points as representing what they de- 
sired. I recently spoke to a body of loyal Americans 
of German descent on behalf of the Liberty Loan. A 
member of their organization who was not a straight 
American, but a hyphenated American, and who did 
not venture to do more than sign himself as " Ger- 
man-American," wrote me that in view of my re- 
pudiation of President Wilson's so-called fourteen 
points he could not, as a loyal German-American, do 
otherwise than condemn me. The individual him- 
self is doubtless as unimportant as the anonymous 
letter writer usually is, but there is a real significance 
in his endorsement of President Wilson's fourteen 
points in view of his calling himself so emphatically 
not a straight-out American, but a German-Ameri- 
can. Evidently his loyalty is to Germanism and not 
to Americanism, and this German loyalty of his 
made him back the President's fourteen points, 
which Germany had so gladly accepted. 

The American people should insist that these four- 



236 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

teen points and any other points are stated in clear- 
cut language, and that there be a full understanding 
of just what is meant by them and a full knowledge 
of how far the American people approve of them 
before any foreign power is permitted to think that 
they represent America's position at the peace 
council. 



AN AMERICAN PEACE VERSUS 
A RUBBER-STAMP PEACE 

October 22, 1918 

In Wallace's Farmer, a journal devoted to the inter- 
ests of the farmer, and also to the interests of every 
good American citizen, but which has no concern 
with partisan politics, there is a strong editorial 
against our acceptance of a peace on the terms of the 
famous fourteen points laid down by President 
Wilson in his message of January last. It reads in 
part as follows: 

Of course, Germany would like to make peace on the terms 
laid down by President Wilson in his speech of January 8, for 
it would allow Germany to escape the just penalty of her 
crimes and restore her to her condition before the war. 

On the other hand, the leading Socialist paper of 
New York enthusiastically champions the fourteen 
points, especially those demanding a league of na- 
tions, freedom of the seas according to the German 
party, and the removal of all economic barriers. 
This championship is natural, for the Socialists, like 



AN AMERICAN PEACE 237 

the I.W.W. of this country, who have been bitterly 
pro-German and anti-American, and Hke the worst 
Russian Bolsheviks, have steadily worked in Ger- 
many's interests; and like all its professional inter- 
nationalists they hate the liberty-loving nations so 
bitterly that they are eagerly working for peace satis- 
factory to the German autocracy. All such persons, 
so far as they are not merely silly, seek their own 
profit in the destruction of civilization, and they 
would hail an inconclusive peace, which would mean 
the triumph of militarism, rather than see the free 
nations triumphant over both militarism and anarchy. 
But in his last note to Austria, President Wilson 
himself flatly repudiates one of his fourteen points — 
that relating to autonomy for the Czecho-Slovaks 
and Jugo-Slavs under the Austro-Hungarian yoke. 
He announces that he has changed his position 
because facts have changed, but in reality the facts 
have not changed in even the smallest degree be- 
tween January and October so far as these two 
nationalities are concerned. Many persons, includ- 
ing myself, had then been demanding for over a year 
this complete independence. Nothing whatever has 
changed in the situation except Mr. Wilson's mind, 
and obviously this has changed merely because the 
American people have gradually waked up and have 
forced him in this matter to take a course diamet- 
rically opposed to the one he had been advocating, 
precisely as a week ago an aroused and indignant 
public opinion forced him to absolutely reverse the 
course of negotiation on which he entered with Ger- 



238 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

many. The popular feeling would have been inartic- 
ulate and helpless if it had not received expression 
from various patriotic public servants and private 
citizens and from those fearless newspapers, which, 
at the risk of grave financial disaster, have ventured 
when the crisis was serious to defy the sinister efforts 
of the Administration to do away with the free- 
dom of the press. Senators Lodge, Poindexter, and 
Thomas and Congressman Fess are examples of the 
public servants, and Professor Hobbs, of the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, and Professor Thayer, of Har- 
vard, are examples of private citizens who have 
well served the people of the United States in this 
crisis. 

Of course, the entire cuckoo or rubber-stamp tribe 
of politicians tumbled over themselves in the effort 
to assure the President that no matter what somer- 
sault he turned they would flop with equal quickness, 
and that their responsibility was solely to him and 
not to the people of the United States or to the cause 
of right and of fearlessness and of honorable dealing. 
Senator Lewis, of Illinois, introduced a resolution 
stating that " the United States Senate approves 
whatever course may be taken by the President in 
dealing with the German Imperial Government and 
the Austrian Imperial Government and endorses 
and approves whatever methods he may employ." 
Senator Lewis is, in private life, an amiable and 
kindly gentleman, but the above resolution is a 
somewhat abject announcement that in public life he 
aspires only to be a rubber stamp. If such position is 



UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER 239 

proper, then there is no need of Senators or Congress- 
men, and our people should merely send written 
proxies to Washington and should otherwise copy 
the example of those big private corporations which 
are controlled by one man according to his own will 
and for his own benefit. 

I do not believe that the American people will 
accept a view which is both so abject and so pro- 
foundly unpatriotic. This is the war of the American 
people and the peace which concludes it should be 
the peace imposed by the American people. There- 
fore, they should send to Washington public servants 
who will be self-respecting Americans and not rubber 
stamps. 



UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER 
October 26, 191 8 

When the American people speak for unconditional 
surrender, it means that Germany must accept what- 
ever terms the United States and its allies think 
necessary in order to right the dreadful wrongs that 
have been committed and to safeguard the world for 
at least a generation to come from another attempt 
by Germany to secure world dominion. Uncondi- 
tional surrender is the reverse of a negotiated peace. 
The interchange of notes, which has been going on 
between our Government and the Governments of 
Germany and Austria during the last three weeks, 
means, of course, if persisted in, a negotiated peace. 



240 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

It is the abandonment of force and the substitution 
of negotiation. This fact should be clearly and truth- 
fully stated by our leaders, so that the American 
people may decide with their eyes open which course 
they will follow. 

Those of us who believe in unconditional surrender 
regard Germany's behavior during the last five years 
as having made her the outlaw among nations. In 
private life sensible men and women do not negotiate 
with an outlaw or grow sentimental about him, or 
ask for a peace with him on terms of equality if he 
will give up his booty. Still less do they propose to 
make a league with him for the future, and on the 
strength of this league to abolish the sheriff and take 
the constable. On the contrary, they expect the law 
of^cers to take him by force and to have him tried 
and punished. They do not punish him out of re- 
venge, but because all intelligent persons know 
punishment to be necessary in order to stop certain 
kinds of criminals from wrongdoing and to save the 
community from such wrongdoing. 

We ought to treat Germany in precisely this 
manner. It Is a sad and dreadful thing to have to 
face some months or a year or so of additional blood- 
shed, but It is a much worse thing to quit now and 
have the children now growing up obliged to do the 
job all over again, with ten times as much bloodshed 
and suffering, when their turn comes. The surest 
way to secure a peace as lasting as that which 
followed the downfall of Napoleon Is to overthrow 
the Prussianized Germany of the Hohenzollerns as 



WHAT ARE THE FOURTEEN POINTS ? 241 

Napoleon was overthrown. If we enter Into a league 
of peace with Germany and her vassal allies, we must 
expect them to treat the arrangement as a scrap of 
paper whenever it becomes to their interest to do so. 



WHAT ARE THE FOURTEEN POINTS? 

October 30, 191 8 

The European nations have been told that the 
fourteen points enumerated In President Wilson's 
message of January last are to be the basis of peace. 
It is, therefore, possible that Americans may like to 
know what they are. It is even possible that they 
may like to guess what they mean, although I am 
not certain that such guessing is permitted by the 
Postmaster-General and the Attorney-General under 
the new theory of making democracy safe for all 
kinds of peoples abroad who have never heard of It 
by interpreting democracy at home as meaning that 
it is unlawful for the people to express any except 
favorable opinions of the way in which the public 
servants of the people transact the public business. 
The first point forbids " all private international 
understandings of any kind," and says there must be 
" open covenants of peace, openly arrived at," and 
announces that '' diplomacy shall always proceed 
frankly In the public view." The President has re- 
cently waged war on Haiti and San Domingo and 
rendered democracy within these two small former 
republics not merely unsafe, but non-existent. He 



242 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

has kept all that he has done in the matter absolutely 
secret. If he means what he says, he will at once an- 
nounce what open covenant of peace he has openly 
arrived at with these two little republics, which he 
has deprived of their right of self-determination. He 
will also announce what public international under- 
standing, if any, he now has with these two republics, 
whose soil he is at present occupying with the armed 
forces of the United States and hundreds of whose 
citizens have been killed by these armed forces. If 
he has no such public understanding, he will tell us 
why, and whether he has any private international 
understanding, or whether he invaded and con- 
quered them and deprived them of the right of self- 
determination without any attempt to reach any 
understanding, either private or public. 

Moreover, he has just sent abroad on a diplomatic 
mission Mr. House, of Texas. Mr. House is not 
in the public service of the Nation, but he is in 
the private service of Mr. Wilson. He is usually 
called Colonel House. In his official or semi-ofhcial 
biography, published in an ardently admiring New 
York paper, it is explained that he was once ap- 
pointed colonel on a governor's staff, but carried his 
dislike of military ostentation to the point of giving 
his uniform to a negro servant to wear on social 
occasions. This attitude of respect for the uniform 
makes the President feel that he is peculiarly fit to 
negotiate on behalf of our fighting men abroad for 
whom the uniform is sacred. Associated with him is 
an editor of the New York World, which paper has 



THE FOURTEEN POINTS 243 

recently been busy in denouncing as foolish the 
demand made by so many Americans for uncondi- 
tional surrender by Germany. 

I do not doubt that these two gentlemen possess 
charming social attributes and much private worth, 
but as they are sent over on a diplomatic mission, 
presumably vitally affecting the whole country, and 
as their instructions and purposes are shrouded in 
profound mystery, it seems permissible to ask Presi- 
dent Wilson why in this particular instance diplo- 
macy does not " proceed frankly in the public 
view r 

This first one of the fourteen points offers such an 
illuminating opportunity to test promise as to the 
future by performance in the present that I have 
considered it at some length. The other thirteen 
points and the subsequent points laid down as 
further requirements for peace I shall briefly take up 
in another article. 



FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE 
FOURTEEN POINTS 

October 30, 191 8 

The second in the fourteen points deals with freedom 
of the seas. It makes no distinction between freeing 
the seas from murder like that continually practiced 
by Germany and freeing them from blockade of 
contraband merchandise, which is the practice of a 
right universally enjoyed by belligerents, and at this 



244 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

moment practiced by the United States. Either this 
proposal is meaningless or it is a mischievous con- 
cession to Germany. 

The third point promises free trade among all the 
nations, unless the words are designedly used to 
conceal President Wilson's true meaning. This 
would deny to our country the right to make a tariff 
to protect its citizens, and especially its working- 
men, against Germany or China or any other 
country. Apparently this is desired on the ground 
that the incidental domestic disaster to this country 
will prevent other countries from feeling hostile to 
us. The supposition is foolish. England practiced 
free trade and yet Germany hated England particu- 
larly, and Turkey practiced free trade without 
deserving or obtaining friendship from any one 
except those who desired to exploit her. 

The fourth point provides that this Nation, like 
every other, is to reduce its armaments to the lowest 
limit consistent with domestic safety. Either this is 
language deliberately used to deceive or else It means 
that we are to scrap our army and navy and prevent 
riot by means of a national constabulary, like the 
state constabulary of New York or Pennsylvania. 

Point five proposes that colonial claims shall all be 
treated on the same basis. Unless the language is 
deliberately used to deceive, this means that we are 
to restore to our brutal enemy the colonies taken by 
our allies while they were defending us from this 
enemy. The proposition is probably meaningless. If 
it is not, it is monstrous. 



THE FOURTEEN POINTS 245 

Point six deals with Russia. It probably means 
nothing, but if it means anything, it provides that 
America shall share on equal terms with other na- 
tions, including Germany, Austria, and Turkey, in 
giving Russia assistance. The whole proposition 
would not be particularly out of place in a college 
sophomore's exercise in rhetoric. 

Point seven deals with Belgium and is entirely 
proper and commonplace. 

Point eight deals with Alsace-Lorraine and is 
couched in language which betrays Mr. Wilson's 
besetting sin — his inability to speak in a straight- 
forward manner. He may mean that Alsace and 
Lorraine must be restored to France, in which case 
he is right. He may mean that a plebiscite must be 
held, in which case he is playing Germany's evil 
game. 

Point nine deals with Italy, and is right. 

Point ten deals with the Austro-Hungarian Em- 
pire, and is so foolish that even President Wilson has 
since abandoned it. 

Point eleven proposes that we, together with other 
nations, including apparently Germany, Austria, 
and Hungary, shall guarantee justice in the Balkan 
Peninsula. As this would also guarantee our being 
from time to time engaged in war over matters in 
which we had no interest whatever, it is worth while 
inquiring whether President Wilson proposes that we 
wage these wars with the national constabulary to 
which he desired to reduce our armed forces. 

Point twelve proposes to perpetuate the infamy of 



246 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

Turkish rule in Europe, and as a sop to the con- 
science of humanity proposes to give the subject 
races autonomy, a slippery word which in a case hke 
this is useful only for rhetorical purposes. 

Point thirteen proposes an independent Poland, 
which is right; and then proposes that we guarantee 
its integrity in the event of future war, which is 
preposterous unless we intend to become a military 
nation more fit for overseas warfare than Germany 
is at present. 

Point fourteen proposes a general association of 
nations to guarantee to great and small states alike 
political independence and territorial integrity. It 
is dishonorable to make this proposition so long as 
President Wilson continues to act as he is now acting 
in Haiti and San Domingo. In its essence Mr. 
Wilson's proposition for a league of nations seems to 
be akin to the holy alliance of the nations of Europe 
a century ago, which worked such mischief that the 
Monroe Doctrine was called into being especially to 
combat it. If it is designed to do away with nation- 
alism, it will work nothing but mischief. If it is 
devised in sane fashion as an addition to nationalism 
and as an addition to preparing our own strength for 
our own defense, it may do a small amount of good; 
but it will certainly accomplish nothing if more than 
a moderate amount is attempted and probably the 
best first step would be to make the existing league 
of the Allies a going concern. 

As to the supplementary points or proposals, the 
four advanced or laid down in February were sound 



THE FOURTEEN POINTS 247 

moral aphorisms of no value save as they may be 
defined in each particular case. 

But the supplementary five proposals set forth by 
President Wilson last September were, on the whole, 
mischievous and were capable of a construction that 
would make them ruinous in their essence. They set 
forth the doctrine that there must be no discrimina- 
tion between our friends and our enemies and no 
special economic or political alliances among friendly 
nations, but uniform treatment of all the league of 
nations; the said league, therefore, to include Ger- 
many, Austria, Turkey, and Russia upon a footing of 
equality of our allies. Either the words used mean 
nothing or they mean that we are to enter a league 
in which we make-believe that our deadly enemies, 
stained with every kind of brutality and treachery, 
are as worthy of friendship as the Allies who have 
fought our battles for four years. No wonder that 
the proposal is enthusiastically applauded by Ger- 
many, Austria, and Turkey and by all our own pro- 
Germans and pacifists and Germanized Socialists 
and anti-American internationalists. It is the kind 
of proposition made by cold-blooded men who at 
least care nothing for the sufferings of others. It is 
eagerly championed by foolish and hysterical senti- 
mentalists. It is accepted and used for sinister pur- 
poses by pow^erful and cynical wrongdoers. When 
the President was making this proposition and 
during the subsequent month Germany was com- 
mitting inhuman murders of the people on the 
Ticonderoga and Leinster at sea, and on shore was 



248 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR . 

committing every species of murder, rape, enslave- 
ment, plunder, and outrage as her armies withdrew 
from France and Belgium. 

President Wilson's announcement was a notice to 
the malefactors that they would not be punished for 
the murders. Let us treat the league of nations only 
as an addition to, and not as a substitute for, thor- 
ough preparedness and intense nationalism on our 
part. Let none of the present international criminals 
be admitted until a sufficient number of years has 
passed to make us sure it has repented. Make con- 
duct the test of admission to the league. In every 
crisis judge each nation by its conduct. Therefore, 
at the present time let us stand by our friends and 
against our enemies. 



FOURTEEN SCRAPS OF PAPER 

October 31, 191 8 

In my article yesterday I discussed Mr. Wilson's 
fourteen peace points which had been accepted by 
Germany. After the article was sent in, Mr. Wilson 
explained one of the points by stating that it meant 
exactly the opposite of what it said. A New York 
paper has asked for the election of a Congress that 
shall see eye to eye with Mr. Wilson. But only a 
Congress of whirling dervishes could see eye to eye 
with Mr. Wilson for more than twenty-four hours at 
a time. 

When Germany broke her treaty with Belgium, 



FOURTEEN SCIL^PS OF PAPER 249 

the German Chancellor called it a scrap of paper. 
Any individual who proposes a treaty which plainly 
means one thing, and then, as soon as he finds it dis- 
agreeable to adhere to that obvious meaning, in- 
stantly interprets it as meaning exactly' the opposite, 
is treating it as a scrap of paper. Mr. Wilson's recent 
interpretation of what he meant in the point about 
economic barriers makes all the fourteen points 
scraps of paper unworthy of serious discussion by 
anybody, because no human being is supposed to say 
what any one of them means or to do more than 
guess whether to-morrow Mr. Wilson will not in- 
terpret each and all of them in a sense exactly the 
opposite to their meaning. 

Mr. Wilson's language in the point in question 
was that he intended the removal " of all economic 
barriers and the establishment of an equality of 
trade conditions among all the nations." By no 
honest construction of language can this be held to 
mean anything except that this Nation, for example, 
could have no tariff of its own, but must live under 
exactly the same tariff, or no tariff, conditions with 
all other nations. But Mr. Wilson now notifies a 
Democratic Senator that he did not mean any " re- 
striction upon the free determination by any nation 
of its own economic policy." If he meant this, why 
did he not say it? Why did he say the exact oppo- 
site? His first statement is wholly incompatible 
with the interpretation he now puts on it. If any- 
body in private life entered into a contract in such 
manner and then sought to repudiate it by interpret- 



250 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

ing it In such manner, there is not a court in Chris- 
tendom that would not adjudge him guilty of having 
used language with deliberate intent to deceive. 

Nor is this all. In his new interpretation of what 
he did not originally mean, the President now says 
that he proposes to prevent any nation, including the 
United States, from using its tariff to discriminate in 
favor of friendly nations and against hostile nations. 
This is what he now says and what he now means, 
but, of course, to-morrow he may say that in this 
new interpretation he again meant exactly the oppo- 
site of what he says. However this may be for the 
future, President Wilson at this moment says, for 
instance, we ought to abandon reciprocity treaties; 
that w^e ought to refuse to make such treaties with 
our friends, such as Cuba and Brazil, and ought to 
punish these friends by treating them on an exact 
equality with our embittered and malevolent enemy, 
Germany. J hold this to be thoroughly mischievous 
doctrine. 

The great scientist, Huxley, who loved truth and 
abhorred falsehood, said that " the primary condi- 
tion of honest literature is to leave the reader in no 
doubt as to the author's meaning." Evidently this 
primary condition is not fulfilled by Mr. Wilson's 
fourteen points. They should now be treated as 
scraps of paper and put where they belong, in the 
scrap-basket. 



THE TURKS SURRENDER 251 

THE TURKS SURRENDER 
UNCONDITIONALLY 

November 3, 191 8 

The British have beaten Turkey to her knees and 
she has surrendered unconditionally. America has 
no share in the honor of what has been done. Presi- 
dent Wilson, although we were at war with Ger- 
many, has refused to aid our allies against Turkey 
and has preserved the same cold neutrality between 
the Armenians and their Turkish butchers that he 
formerly did between the Belgians and their German 
oppressors. 

Turkey had inflicted inhuman wrongs on the 
subject peoples and had infringed our own treaty 
rights, but President Wilson refused to go to war 
with her. Yet with our navy at the very outbreak 
of hostilities and then with a considerable and con- 
stantly growing army, if we had been willing we 
could have materially aided the British and French. 
In such event Constantinople would doubtless have 
been taken long ago. As it is, thanks to President 
Wilson, we Americans can only look on and rejoice 
that others did better than our rulers let us do. We 
have had no hand in the freeing of Palestine, Syria, 
and Armenia. Under the great law of service and 
sacrifice it is the British and French alone who have 
the moral right to determine the fate of Turkey. 
They, and especially the British, have poured out 
their blood freely, and now, after the victory has 



252 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

been gained, expenditure of ink on our part is of 
mighty small consequence in comparison. I ear- 
nestly hope that permanent justice will be done by 
expelling the Turk from Europe and making all 
Armenia independent. But we have lost the right to 
insist on these points. 

The beginning of the end came when, two or three 
weeks ago, Bulgaria was forced to surrender 
unconditionally. Here again, thanks to President 
Wilson, America had no part in the honor and credit 
of the vital triumph. Our Government was still 
neutral about Bulgaria, still too proud to fight either 
Turkey or Bulgaria, still hoping for peace without 
victory over them. 

Now Turkey has surrendered and Austria has 
broken up. In the case of Austria, after ten months' 
unpardonable delay, we did finally go to war, and we 
have a very small share in the great glory won by 
Italy and the other Allies. 

The greatest contest was on the western front, and 
here the hundreds of thousands of American troops 
engaged under Foch and Pershing have shown such 
extraordinary gallantry and efificiency that we are all 
forever their debtors. Nearly a month ago President 
Wilson entered into negotiations with Germany 
which, if continued along the line he started, might 
have caused disaster. Fortunately there was such an 
outburst of protest in the country that our allies took 
part and President Wilson himself took warning. 
President Wilson may still serve as a channel of 
communication. But General Foch will be the real 



PEACE 253 

master of the situation. The men with guns and not 
the men with fountain pens will dictate the terms. 



PEACE 

November 12, 1918 

Four years and a quarter have passed since Ger- 
many, by the invasion of Belgium, began the World 
War and made it at the same time a war of cynical 
treachery and of bestiality and of inhuman wrong- 
doing. Almost from the beginning our governmental 
authorities were well informed of the organized 
brutality with which it was waged and of the fact 
that the Kaiser and the leading soldiers, politicians, 
and commercial magnates of Germany had deliber- 
ately plunged the world into war because they ex- 
pected to profit by conquest, while the Socialist 
Party aided and abetted them in the hope of sharing 
some of the profit. 

The rest of us ordinary Americans were success- 
fully hoodwinked because the facts were concealed 
from us. But gradually the truth leaked through to 
us. First we learned that the stories of the atrocities 
were true. Then, although not until much later, we 
found out that there was ample proof that Germany 
had brought on the war to gratify her greed for gold 
and her arrogant and conscienceless lust for world 
domination. Finally we were permitted to learn that 
Germany intended to strike us down as soon as she 
had made the free nations her victims. Now our 



254 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

troops have played a manful part, a part not only 
heroic and efficient, but also of decisive consequence 
in the final terrible struggle. 

It is not pleasant to think that the two first 
crushing blows in bringing about the end, the over- 
throw of Bulgaria and the overthrow of Turkey, 
were due in no way to us, but solely to our allies, 
England and France. We never made war on either 
offending nation; we remained neutral, and this ex- 
hibition of feeble diplomacy on our part made us 
onlookers instead of partakers of the triumph. But 
with Austria, after much hesitation and wabbling, 
we did finally go to war, and, although our part was 
very small, we have a modest right to share the 
general satisfaction over the victory. In the case of 
Germany, however, we played a really great part, 
and although until the very end we were unable to 
put on the fighting line any tanks or field guns or 
battle planes, and relatively only a small number of 
machine guns and bombing and observation planes, 
our soldiers themselves were probably on the average 
the finest troops who fought in Europe. 

And now the German imperial military and cap- 
italistic authority has been beaten to its knees and 
forced to accept all the terms the Allies have imposed 
upon it. The able and wicked men who thought to 
wade through a sea of blood to world domination 
must now bow their heads before the outside peoples 
whom they have so cruelly wronged and face the 
sullen distrust and hostility of their own people, 
whom they misled by promising them a share in the 



SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS 255 

profits of successful guilt. Their doom has come 
upon them. 

A little over a month ago the Administration em- 
barked upon a career of note-writing with Germany, 
which, if unchecked, might have meant a peace of 
practical profit to Germany. But the feeling of the 
American people, especially in the West, showed it- 
self in such direct and straightforward fashion that 
this effort was soon abandoned. Moreover, at the 
recent election, the American people, with the issue 
squarely before them, declared that they were the 
masters of their public servants and not rubber 
stamps, and that this was the people's war and not 
the war of any one man or any one party, and that 
loyalty to ourselves and our allies stood ahead of ad- 
herence to any man. Germany has been beaten 
down abroad and at home. The pro-Germans and 
the pacifists and the defeatists and the Germanized 
Socialists, and all the crew who stand for any form 
of either Bolshevism or Kaiserism, have been warned 
that they shall not betray this Nation. 

SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS 

November 13, 191 8 

A FRIEND, a California woman, writes me that there 

is staying with her a widow whose only son has been 

in the navy and has just died of influenza, and that 

the mother said: 

I gave my boy proudly to my country. I never held him 
back, even in my heart. But if only he had died with a gun 



256 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

in his hand — a little glory for him and a thought for me that 
my sacrifice had not been useless. 

My correspondent continues: 

There must be so many mothers who feel that they have 
laid their sacrifice on cold altars. You have written much 
that will comfort the mothers whose sons have paid with 
their bodies in battle. Is n't there something you can say to 
help these other mothers? 

I felt a real pang when I received this letter, be- 
cause the thought suggested had been in my mind, 
and yet I had failed to express it. It had happened 
that my own sons and nephews and young cousins 
and their close friends were w^here death or wounds 
came to them on the field of action. For example, on 
the day I received this letter we also got news that 
the closest school and college and army friend of my 
son, Quentin, who was killed, had himself just been 
killed. He was a man who had been promoted for a 
series of hazardous and successful battles with Ger- 
man airmen. He was as gentle and clean and lovable 
as a girl, yet terrible in his battle, and no more high 
and fearless soul ever fronted death joyously in the 
high heavens. My mind had, because of facts like 
this, turned toward the deaths of the men on the 
firing line; and I regret that I did not make it evi- 
dent as I meant to make it, and but for this over- 
sight would have made it, that all who have given 
their lives or the lives dearest to them in this war 
stand on an exact level of service and sacrifice and 
honor and glory. 

The men who have died of pneumonia or fever in 



SACRIFICE ON COLD ALTARS 257 

the hospitals, the men who have been killed in acci- 
dents on the airplane training fields are as much 
heroes as those who were killed at the front, and 
their shining souls shall hereafter light up all to a 
clearer and greater view of the duties of life. The 
war is over now. The time of frightful losses among 
the men at the front and of heartbreaking anxiety 
for their mothers and wives, their sisters and sweet- 
hearts at home has passed. No great triumph is ever 
won save by the payment of the necessary cost. All 
of us who have stayed at home and all the others who 
have returned safe will, as long as life shall last, 
think of the men who died as having purchased for 
us and for our children's children, as long as this 
country shall last, a heritage so precious that even 
their precious blood was not too great a price to pay. 
Whether they fell in battle or how they died matters 
not at all, and it matters not what they were doing 
as long as, high of soul, they were doing their duty 
with all the strength and fervor of their natures. 
The mother or the wife whose son or husband has 
died, whether in battle or by fever or in the accident 
inevitable in hurriedly preparing a modern army for 
war, must never feel that the sacrifice has been laid 
" on a cold altar." There is no gradation of honor 
among these gallant men and no essential gradation 
of service. They all died that we might live; our 
debt is to all of them, and we can pay it even person- 
ally only by striving so to live as to bring a little 
nearer the day when justice and mercy shall rule in 
our own homes and among the nations of the world. 



258 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

THE RED FLAG AND THE HUN 
PEACE DRIVE 

November 14, 1918 

The war is won. A twofold duty Is now Incumbent 
on us. We must strive to make the peace one of 
justice and righteousness and to throw out such safe- 
guards around It as will give us the greatest possi- 
ble chance of permanency. Then we must turn to 
setting aright the affairs of our own household. 
But before we set ourselves to the performance of 
these two tasks we should thoroughly enlighten 
our enemies at home and abroad on one or two 
points. 

Let all anti-Americans stand aside. Let them 
understand that we are not merely against some 
enemies of the country — we are against all enemies 
of the country. This week In New York there was a 
red flag of Anarchy or Socialistic meeting which was 
the cause of a riot. It was perfectly natural that it 
should be the cause of a riot. The red flag Is as much 
an enemy as the flag of the Hohenzollerns. The 
internationalist of the red flag or black flag type Is an 
enemy to this Nation just exactly as much as Hin- 
denburg or Ludendorff was an enemy only a week 
ago. He is an even more treacherous enemy and 
equally brutal. Congress should pass a law without 
waiting a day prohibiting the use of the red flag or 
the black flag or any other flag of the kind here in 
America. We have universal suffrage In America. 



THE RED FLAG 259 

The majority of our people can have what they 
wish in the way of industrial and political change, if 
they seriously desire it. There is n't any excuse in 
this country for any paltering with revolutionary 
movements. A riot is riot, without reference to 
what the people rioting claim to be for. When a mob 
gets started, it always acts the same way, no matter 
what the theoretical cause of the outbreak may have 
been. A Bolshevist mob in New York in all essen- 
tials resembles the anti-draft mob of 1863, although 
the arguments of the parlor Bolsheviki of to-day 
would be totally different from those of the consti- 
tutional copperheads of fifty-five years ago. 

When the Romanoffs were overthrown the Rus- 
sian people lacked self-control and they permitted 
the dominion of a Bolshevist gang, which has 
brought wholesale robbery, murder, and starvation 
in its trail. The overthrow of the Hohenzollerns in 
Germany has been accompanied by Bolshevist up- 
rising in that country also. There is some excuse for 
excesses in a revolution against a despotism, but in 
this country there is no more excuse for Bolshevism 
in any form than there is for despotism itself. Any 
foreign-born man who parades with or backs up a 
red flag or black flag organization ought to be in- 
stantly deported to the country from which he came. 
Appropriate punishment should be devised for the 
even more guilty native-born. 

Our National Government should take the most 
vigorous action and have it understood that Amer- 
ica is a bulwark of order no less than of liberty. 



r 



260 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

We must make it evident that we will stamp out 
Bolshevism within our borders just as quickly as 
Kaiserism. 

Moreover, let us realize the nonsense of the pre- 
tense that the German people have not been behind 
the German Government. They were behind their 
Government with hearty enthusiasm until the Gov- 
ernment was smashed by the military powers of 
General Foch. The effort now being made by the 
German Government to bring dissensions between 
the Allies by appealing to the United States against 
the Allies proper should be spurned by our Govern- 
ment. The French, English, Italians, and Belgians 
have been fighting side by side with our men under 
Foch. They have acted as comrades under Foch, and 
we could not have done anything if we had not acted 
as comrades like the rest. Now let 's play the game 
when the effort is made to divide us by the German 
peace drive. 

Senator Poindexter was entirely right in his pro- 
posed bill. The United States must make absolutely 
common cause with the Allies. We regret that the 
German and Russian people should suffer; the fault 
lies solely w^ith the past or present governments. To 
the very minute of the closing of the war the hideous 
German brutalities continued unabated, and ap- 
parently the Turks are still slaughtering Armenians. 
We will do our best to help even our enemies now 
that they have been stricken down, but we will not 
do so at the cost of doing injustice to our friends. 
We will not permit Hun hypocrisy to succeed where 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 261 

Hun violence has failed. And we are equally un- 
compromising foes of Bolshevism and Kaiserism at 
home and abroad. 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 

November 17, 191 8 

There are so many prior things to do and so much 
uncertainty as to the form of agreement for perma- 
nently increasing the chances of peace that it is 
difficult to do more than make a general statement as 
to what is desirable and possibly feasible in the 
league of nations plan. It would certainly be folly 
to discuss it overmuch until some of the existing ob- 
stacles to peace are overcome. That such discussion 
may be not futile, but mischievous, has been vividly 
shown in the last six weeks. During the first week of 
October President Wilson and Germany agreed on 
the famous fourteen points of Mr. Wilson's as a basis 
for peace. But this agreement amounted to nothing 
whatever except for a moment it gave Germany the 
hope that she could escape disaster by a negotiated 
peace. The emphatic protest of our own people 
caused this hope to vanish, and just five weeks later 
peace came, not on Mr. Wilson's fourteen points, 
but on General Foch's twenty-odd points, which had 
all the directness, the straightforwardness, and the 
unequivocal clearness which the fourteen points 
strikingly lacked. 

Nevertheless, it is well to begin considering now 



262 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

the things which we think can be done and the things 
that we think cannot be done in making a league of 
nations. In the first place, we ought to realize that 
the population of the world clearly understands that 
in this war they have been involved to a degree 
never hitherto known. In consequence the horror 
of the war is very real, and people are at least think- 
ing of the need of cooperation with much greater 
fixity of purpose and of understanding than ever 
before. Of course, fundamentally war and peace 
are matters of the heart rather than of organization, 
and any declaration or peace league which represents 
the high-flown sentimentality of pacifists and doc- 
trinaires will be worse than useless; but if, without 
in the smallest degree sacrificing our belief in a sound 
and intense national aim, we all join with the people 
of England, France, and Italy and with the people in 
smaller states who in practice show themselves able 
to steer equally clear of Bolshevism and of Kaiser- 
ism, we may be able to make a real and much-needed 
advance in the international organization. The 
United States cannot again completely withdraw 
into its shell. We need not mix in all European 
quarrels nor assume all spheres of interest every- 
where to be ours, but we ought to join with the other 
civilized nations of the world in some scheme that 
in a time of great stress would offer a likelihood of 
obtaining just settlements that will avert war. 

Therefore, in my judgment, the United States at 
the peace conference ought to be able to cooperate 
effectively with the British and French and Italian 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 263 

Governments to support a practical and effective 
plan which won't attempt the impossible, but which 
will represent a real step forward. 

Probably the first essential would be to limit the 
league at the outset to the Allies, to the peoples with 
whom we have been operating and with whom we are 
certain we can cooperate in the future. Neither Tur- 
key nor Austria need now be considered as regards 
such a league, and we should clearly understand that 
Bolshevist Russia is, and that Bolshevist Germany 
would be, as undesirable in such a league as the Ger- 
many and Russia of the Hohenzollerns and Roman- 
offs. Bolshevism is just as much an international 
menace as Kaiserism. Until Germany and Russia 
have proved by a course of conduct extending over 
years that they are capable of entering such a league 
in good faith, so that we can count upon their fulfill- 
ing their duties in it, it would be merely foolish to 
take them in. 

The league, therefore, would have to be based on 
the combination among the Allies of the present war 
— together with any peoples like the Czecho-Slo- 
vaks, who have shown that they are fully entitled to 
enter into such a league if they desire to do so. Each 
nation should absolutely reserve to itself its right to 
establish its own tariff and general economic policy, 
and absolutely ought to control such vital questions 
as immigration and citizenship and the form of 
government it prefers. Then it would probably be 
best for certain spheres of interest to be reserved to 
each nation or a group of nations. 



264 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

The northernmost portion of South America and 
Mexico and Central America, all of them fronting 
on the Panama Canal, have a special interest to the 
United States, more interest than they can have for 
any European or Asiatic power. The general con- 
duct of Eastern Asiatic policy bears a most close rela- 
tionship to Japan. The same thing is true as regards 
other nations and certain of the peculiarly African 
and European questions. Everything outside of 
what is thus reserved, which affects any two mem- 
bers of the league or affects one member of the league 
and outsiders, should be decided by some species of 
court, and all the people of the league should guar- 
antee to use their whole strength in enforcing the 
decision. 

This, of course, means that all the free peoples 
must keep reasonably prepared for defense and for 
helping well-behaved nations against the nations or 
hordes which represent despotism, barbarism, and 
anarchy. As far as the United States is concerned, I 
believe we should keep our navy to the highest pos- 
sible point of efficiency and have it second in size to 
that of Great Britain alone, and we should then have 
universal obligatory military training for all our 
young men for a period of, say, nine months during 
some one year between the ages of nineteen and 
twenty-three inclusive. This would not represent 
militarism, but an antidote against militarism. It 
would not represent a great expense. On the con- 
trary, it would mean to give to every citizen of our 
country an education which would fit him to do his 



AN AMERICAN CONGRESS 265 

work as a citizen as no other type of education 
could. 

There are some nations with which there would 
not be the slightest difficulty in going much further 
than this. The time has now come when it would be 
perfectly safe to enter into universal arbitration 
treaties with the British Empire, for example, re- 
serving such rights only as Australia and Canada 
themselves would reserve inside the British Empire; 
but there are a number of outside peoples with 
whom it would not be safe to go much further than 
above outlined. If we only made this one kind of 
agreement, we could keep it, and we should make no 
agreement that we would not and could not keep. 
More essential than anything else is it for us to 
remember that in matters of this kind an ounce of 
practical performance is worth a ton of windy rhetor- 
ical promises. 



AN AMERICAN CONGRESS 
November 18, 191 8 

The election of a Republican Congress a fortnight 
ago was first and foremost a victory for straight 
Americanism. To the Republican Party it repre- 
sents not so much a victory as an opportunity. To 
the American people, including not only Republicans 
and independents, but all patriotic Democrats who 
put loyalty to the Nation above servility to a polit- 
ical leader, the victory was primarily won for 



266 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

straight-out Americanism. A very important feature 
to remember is that this victory was won in the 
West. On the whole, the East also showed gains, 
but the greatest gains were in the West. The South, 
of course, and most unfortunately, never permits its 
political or patriotic convictions to alter the result at 
the ballot box. 

Now the Westerners, the strong, masterful, self- 
reliant men who won such exacting victories in Kan- 
sas, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, and South 
Dakota, are just as opposed to what may be called 
Kaiserism in our political and industrial life as they 
are to Bolshevism. I firmly believe that this is true 
of the rank and file of the Republican Party every- 
where. They have n't the slightest patience with 
Townleyism in agricultural districts or I.W.W.-ism 
in labor circles. But resolutely they intend to shape 
our internal policy for the real substantial benefit of 
the average man, of the ninety per cent of our people 
who are farmers, working-men, small shopkeepers, 
doctors, and the like. They have n't the slightest 
patience with the Bolshevist desire to establish 
proletariat class tyranny, which is just as odious as 
aristocratic class tyranny. They have n't the slight- 
est patience in persecution of, or failure generously to 
reward, the man who by nature or by training is a 
leader in industrial matters. They want to see farm- 
ing, for instance, offer a chance to the man of ability 
to become a scientific farmer on a large scale. They 
wish to see the young business man whose leadership 
in manufactures or commerce is of incalculable 



AN AMERICAN CONGRESS 267 

worth to everybody receive in generous fashion the 
big reward to which he is entitled. 

But they wish to do all this as an incident to secur- 
ing not only this right to, but a much better chance 
for, the average man. They wish the tenant farmer 
class to be made a diminishing instead of an increas- 
ing class so that tenant farming itself may not be a 
permanent status, but a step toward farm ownership 
by the hired man or the son of the small farm owner. 
They wish to see the working-man, and especially 
the working-man in such huge businesses as those 
connected with transportation, steel production, 
mining, and the like, become not a mere cog in an 
industrial machine, but a man whose self-respect and 
reasonable prosperity are guaranteed if the business 
succeeds, and he is entitled through representation 
on the directory to have his voice heard at the coun- 
cil board of the business, even although at first and 
until the ability to use power is slowly developed by 
the habit of using it, the control may have to do 
primarily with the things of which he has special 
knowledge and in which he has special interest. 
Moreover, there are plenty of great natural re- 
sources, such as water power, where small ownership 
cannot provide capital for the development, but 
where the outright ownership of the people should 
not be disposed of. The happy line must be struck 
between the all-pervading straight regimentation, 
which would be as deadening as paralysis, and the 
regimentation of mere individualism. The Govern- 
ment must exercise control in a spirit of justice to 



268 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

all concerned and with a stern readiness to check in- 
justice by any of those concerned. 

The Republican leadership in Congress has on 
the whole been singularly patriotic and singularly 
free from the vice of mere partisanship during the 
lifetime of the present Congress. We can be certain 
that it will continue to be so in the new Congress. 
In the future as in the past the President can count 
on the hearty and ungrudging support of the Repub- 
lican Party at every point where he is endeavoring 
efficiently and in good faith to serve the interests of 
the Nation. But he can also rest assured that the 
Republican Party will judge its duty by the standard 
of loyalty to the country and will scornfully refuse 
to adopt that extreme baseness of attitude, worthy 
only of slaves, which shrieks that we must stand 
by the Administration whether the Administration 
is right or wrong. Moreover, the Republican Party 
will certainly demand to have an accounting of some 
of the enormous sums of money that have been ex- 
pended and will in due time doubtless demand to 
know what explanation there Is of the Administra- 
tion's persistence in hidden and secret diplomacy in 
so many important matters. Every question will be 
approached from the standpoint of a generous desire, 
without any higgling or dealing on small points, to do 
whatever the Administration demands that is proper 
and to give it a full chance to declare, and perhaps 
develop, its policy; but the Republican Congress 
will understand how to show that it is not a rubber- 
stamp body, but an integral and self-respecting part 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS - 269 

of the American governmental system, wholly and 
solely responsible to the American people. 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS AND THE 
ENSLAVEMENT OF MANKIND 

November 22, 191 8 

The surest way to kill a great cause is to reduce it to 
a hard-and-fast formula and insist upon the applica- 
tion of the formula without regard to actual existing 
conditions. 

It is announced in the press that the President is 
going to the Peace Conference especially to insist, 
among other things, on that one of his fourteen 
points dealing with the so-called " freedom of the 
seas." The President's position in the matter is, of 
course, eagerly championed by Germany, as it has 
been Germany's special position throughout the 
war. It is, of course, eagerly championed by the 
New York World, the Hearst papers, and all the 
rubber-stamp gentry. It is antagonized by England 
and France and by every anti-German in America 
who understands the situation. 

It is utterly impossible, in view of the immense 
rapidity of the change in modern war conditions, to 
formulate abstract policies about such matters as 
contraband and blockades. These policies must 
be actually tested in order to see how they work. 
Both England and the United States have reversed 
themselves in this matter on several different occa- 



270 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

sions. This is interesting as a matter of history, but 
from no other standpoint. If we are honorable and 
inteUigent we will follow the course in this matter 
which, under existing conditions at this time, seems 
most likely to work justice in the immediate future. 

Germany's position was that England had no 
right to blockade her so as to cut off her supplies 
from the outside world. President Wilson at the 
time accepted this view and talked a good deal about 
the freedom of the seas. Meanwhile Germany, 
through her submarines, began an unprecedented 
course of wholesale murder on the seas. President 
Wilson protested against this in language much more 
apologetic and tender than he had used in protesting 
against Great Britain blockading Germany in what 
was essentially the same manner in which we block- 
aded the South during the Civil War. He put the 
dollar above the man and incidentally above the 
women and the children. He protested more vigor- 
ously upon the interference with American goods 
than against the taking of American lives. 

Then we finally went to war with Germany our- 
selves. We instantly adopted toward Germany and 
toward neutrals like Holland exactly the position 
which President Wilson had been denouncing Eng- 
land for adopting toward Germany and toward us. 
Our action in this case was quite right, whereas our 
protest against England's action had been entirely 
wrong. 

President Wilson now proposes to accept the Ger- 
man view and provide a system which, if it had been 



THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS 271 

in existence In 19 14, would have meant the Inev- 
itable and rapid triumph of Germany. 

If this particular one of the proposed fourteen 
points had been in treaty form and had been lived 
up to in 1 9 14, Germany would have had free access 
to the outside world. England's fleet would not have 
enabled her to bring economic pressure to bear upon 
Germany and doubtless Germany would have won 
an overwhelming victory within a couple of years. 
Therefore Mr. Wilson's proposal is that now, when 
no human being can foretell whether Germany will 
feel chastened and morally changed, we shall take 
steps which will mean that if the war has to be fought 
over again, Germany's triumph will have been se- 
cured in advance so far as we are able to secure it. 
All such conditions, all merely academic questions as 
to the attitude of America or of England before 
the outbreak of the Great War, are insignificant. 
Whatever our views prior to the Great War, we are 
fools, indeed, if we have not learned the lessons 
these last four and a half terrible years have taught. 
The freedom of the seas in the sense used by Ger- 
many and Mr. Wilson would have meant the en- 
slavement of mankind to Germany. It would have 
meant that this country would at this time either 
be lying prostrate under the feet of German invaders 
or be purchasing peace by ransoms heavier than 
were paid by Belgium. No patriotic American has 
the right to stand quiet and see the President of the 
country, without any warrant from the country, tr>^ 
to bring upon us such outrageous potentiality and 



272 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

disaster as would be implied in the general interna- 
tional adoption of the so-called "freedom of the 
seas." Such freedom of the seas means the enslave- 
ment of mankind. 



PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE 

PEACE CONFERENCE 

November 26, 191 8 

No public end of any kind will be served by Presi- 
dent Wilson's going with Mr. Creel, Mr. House, and 
his other personal friends to the Peace Conference. 
Inasmuch as the circumstances of his going are so 
extraordinary, and as there is some possibility of 
mischief to this country as a result, there are certain 
facts which should be set forth so clearly that there 
can be no possibility of misunderstanding either by 
our own people, by our allies, or by our beaten ene- 
mies, or by Mr. Wilson himself. 

Ten days before election Mr. Wilson issued an 
appeal to the American people in which he frankly 
abandoned the position of President of the whole 
people; assumed the position, not merely of party 
leader, but of party dictator, and appealed to the 
voters as such. Most of Mr. Wilson's utterances on 
public questions have been susceptible to at least two 
conflicting interpretations. But on this question he 
made the issue absolutely clear. He asked that the 
people return a Democratic majority to both the 
Senate and the House of Representatives. He stated 



WILSON AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE 273 

that the Republican leaders were pro-war, but that 
they were anti-Administration. His appeal was not 
merely against any Republican being elected, but 
against any Democrat who wished to retain his con- 
science in his own keeping. He declared himself 
explicitly against the pro-war Republicans. He de- 
clared explicitly for all pro-Administration Demo- 
crats, without any reference as to whether they were 
pro-war or anti-war. He said that if the people 
approved of his leadership and wished him to con- 
tinue to be their ** unembarrassed spokesman in 
affairs at home and abroad, they must return a 
Democratic majority to both the Senate and the 
House of Representatives." He explicitly stated 
that on the other side of the water the return of a 
Republican majority to either House of Congress 
would be interpreted as a repudiation of his leader- 
ship, and informed his fellow countrymen that to 
elect a Democratic majority in Congress was the 
only way to sustain him, Mr. Wilson. 

The issue was perfectly, clearly drawn. The 
Republican Party was pro-war and anti-Administra- 
tion, the Democratic Party w^as officially pro-Ad- 
ministration without any mind or conscience of its 
own and pro-war or anti-war according to the way 
In which Air. W^Ilson changed his mind overnight or 
between dawn and sunset. The Americans refused to 
sustain Mr. Wilson. They elected a heavily Repub- 
lican House and to the surprise of every one carried a 
majority in the Senate. On Mr. Wilson's own say-so 
they repudiated his leadership. In no other free 



274 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

country in the world to-day would Mr. Wilson be in 
office. He would simply be a private citizen like the 
rest of us. 

Under these circumstances our allies and our 
enemies, and Mr. Wilson himself, should all under- 
stand that Mr. Wilson has no authority whatever to 
speak for the American people at this time. His 
leadership has just been emphatically repudiated by 
them. The newly elected Congress comes far nearer 
than Mr. Wilson to having a right to speak the pur- 
poses of the American people at this moment. Mr. 
Wilson and his fourteen points and his four supple- 
mentary points and his five complementary points 
and all his utterances every which way have ceased 
to have any shadow of right to be accepted as ex- 
pressive of the will of the American people. He is 
President of the United States, he is part of the 
treaty-making power, but he is only part. If he acts 
in good faith to the American people, he will not 
claim on the other side of the water any representa- 
tive capacity in himself to speak for the American 
people. He will say frankly that his personal leader- 
ship has been repudiated and that he now has merely 
the divided official leadership which he shares with 
the Senate. If he will in good faith act in this way 
all good citizens in good faith will support him, 
just as they will support the Senate under similar 
circumstances. 

But there is n't the slightest indication that he 
intends so to act. The most striking manifestation 
of his purpose is that he sent over Mr. Creel and 



WILSON AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE 275 

sixteen of his employees who are officially announced 
as " the United States official press mission to the 
Peace Conference," and, with more self-satisfaction, 
the committee announces, " to interpret the work of 
the Peace Conference by keeping up world-wide 
propaganda to disseminate American accomplish- 
ments and American ideals." At the same time Mr. 
Burleson seized the cables after the war is over and 
when there can be no possible object except to con- 
trol the news in the interest of President Wilson as 
Mr. Burleson and Mr. Creel see that interest. The 
action of the Creel " official press " w^ould really 
seem more like an excessively bad joke if it were n't 
so serious. But during the war the Administration, 
often incompetent to the verge of impudence in 
dealing with war problems and with the Hun within 
our gates, showed itself a past-master in bullying, 
browbeating, deceiving, and puzzling our own 
people. It is utterly impossible that the Creel " offi- 
cial press " and the Burleson-owned cables can have 
any other real purpose than to make the news sent 
out from the Peace Conference, both to ourselves, 
our allies, and our enemies, what they desire to have 
told from their own standpoint and nothing more. 
This is a very grave offense against our own 
people, but it may be a worse offense against both 
our allies and ourselves. America played in the clos- 
ing months of the war a gallant part, but not in any 
way the leading part, and she played this part only 
by acting in strictest agreement with our allies and 
under the joint high command. She should take 



276 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

precisely the same attitude at the Peace Conference. 
We have lost in this war about two hundred and 
thirty-six thousand men killed and wounded. Eng- 
land and France have lost about seven million. Italy 
and Belgium and the other Allies have doubtless lost 
three million more. Of the terrible sacrifice which 
has enabled the Allies to win the victory, America 
has contributed just about two per cent. At the 
end, I personally believe that our intervention was 
decisive because the combatants were so equally 
matched and were so weakened by the terrible strain 
that our money and our enthusiasm and the million 
fighting men whom we got to the front, even al- 
though armed substantially with nothing but French 
field cannon, tanks, machine guns, and airplanes, 
was decisive in the scale. But we could render this 
decisive aid only because for four years the Allies, in 
keeping Germany from conquering their own coun- 
tries, had incidentally kept her from conquering 
ours. 

It is our business to act with our allies and to show 
an undivided front with them against any move of 
our late enemies. I am no Utopian. I understand 
entirely that there can be shifting alliances, I under- 
stand entirely that twenty years hence or thirty 
years hence we don't know what combination we 
may have to face, and for this reason I wish to see 
us preparing our own strength in advance and trust 
to nothing but our own strength for our own self- 
defense as our permanent policy. But in the present 
war we have won only by standing shoulder to 



THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 277 

shoulder with our alUes and presenting an undivided 
front to the enemy. It is our business to show 
the same loyalty and good faith at the Peace Con- 
ference. Let it be clearly understood that the Ameri- 
can people absolutely stand behind France, England, 
Italy, Belgium, and the other Allies at the Peace 
Conference, just as she has stood with them during 
the last eighteen months of war. Let every differ- 
ence of opinion be settled among the Allies them- 
selves and then let them impose their common will 
on the nations responsible for the hideous disaster 
which has almost wrecked mankind. 



THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE, 

December 2, 1918 [ 

Ex-Ambassador Harry White is a capital ap- 
pointee for the Peace Commission. He is not a 
Republican, but an independent in politics who has 
worked as closely with Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Olney 
as with Mr. McKinley and Mr. Root. 

It is a good thing to have him on in view of the 
exceedingly loose talk about the League of Nations 
or League to Enforce Peace. Fortunately Mr. Taft 
has set forth the proposal for such a league under 
existing conditions with such wisdom in refusing to 
let adherence to the principle be clouded by insist- 
ence upon improper or unimportant methods of en- 
forcement that we can speak of the League as a 
practical matter. I think that most of our people are 



278 ' ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

in favor of the establishment of the principle of such 
a league under common-sense conditions which will 
not attempt too much and thereby expose the move- 
ment to the absolute certainty of ridicule and failure. 
There must be an honest effort to eliminate some of 
the causes that may produce future wars and to 
minimize the area of such wars. 

Mr. Taft explicitly admits and insists that the 
League is to be a supplement to, and in no sense a 
substitute for, the duty of our Nation to prepare its 
own strength for its own defense. He also explicitly 
provides that, among the various peoples who would 
not be admitted to the League on an equality with 
the others, there shall be different spheres of interest 
assumed by the different powers who have entered 
into the League. For example, the affairs of hither 
Asia, the Balkan Peninsula, and of North Africa 
are of prime concern to the powers of Europe, and 
the United States should be under no covenant to 
go to war about matters in which its people have no 
concern and probably no intelligent interest. On 
the other hand, the Monroe Doctrine — at least for 
all America between the equator and the southern 
boundary of the United States — is a vital point of 
American policy, and must in no shape or way be 
interfered with. We do not interfere with existing 
conditions, but aside from these no European or 
Asiatic power is to have any say-so in the future 
of Mexico, Central America, and the lands whose 
coasts are washed by the Caribbean Sea. The 
Panama Canal must not be internationalized. It is 



THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 279 

our canal; we built it; we fortified it, and we will 
protect it, and we will not permit our enemies to 
use it in war. In time of peace all nations shall use 
it alike, but in time of war our interest at once be- 
comes dominant. 

Most wisely Mr. Taft's plan reserves for each 
nation certain matters of such vital national interest 
that they cannot be put before any international 
tribunal. This country must settle its own tariff and 
industrial policies, and the question of admitting 
immigrants to work or to citizenship, and all similar 
matters, the exercise of which was claimed as a right 
when in 1776 we became an independent Nation. 
We will not surrender our independence to a league 
of nations any more than to a single nation. More- 
over, no international court must be entrusted with 
the decision of what is and what is not justiciable. 

In the articles of agreement the non- justiciable 
matters should be as sharply defined as possible, 
and until some better plan can be devised, the Na- 
tion itself must reserve to itself the right, as each 
case arises, to say what these matters are. 

But let us steadily remember that before dealing 
with schemes such as the League of Nations, which 
are necessarily more or less visionary, we must join 
in good faith with our allies in securing practical 
right and justice at the Peace Conference. We 
should treat as an enemy to this country every man 
who at this time seeks directly or indirectly to stir up 
dissension between us and England or France, or any 
other of our allies. Side by side we have fought 



280 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

against the hideous twin terrors of Bolshevism and 
Kaiserism and we must stand undivided at the 
Peace Conference. What the distant future may 
hold no man can say, and this is the very reason why 
I insist that America must prepare its own strength 
for its own defense. But our duty at the moment is 
clear. We have fought the war through beside the 
Allies and we must stand with them with hearty 
loyalty throughout the peace negotiations. There 
must be no division in the face of our enemies. At 
the very close of the war we played an honorable 
and probably decisive part, but we were enabled to 
do so only because for the four preceding years Eng- 
land and France and their associates in defending 
their own rights had also saved us from destruction. 
Our sacrifice is infinitesimal compared to theirs. We 
have had a quarter of a million men killed and 
wounded; England has had over three million, 
France nearly four million, and the other Allies 
during their time of warfare against the common foe 
suffered in proportion. Our loss has been no more 
than one or two per cent of the entire loss suffered by 
the Allied armies and navies. 

The immediate cause of bringing the war to an end 
was the forcing of unconditional surrender upon 
Bulgaria and Turkey, with whom we had shamefully 
refused to go to war at all. The English navy pro- 
tected us exactly as it protected Britain. Under such 
circumstances it behooves us to remember that 
while we at the very end did our duty, yet that our 
comrades in arms for over four years performed in- 



MEN WHOSE LOT HAS BEEN HARDEST 281 

calculable feats and suffered incalculable losses and 
won the right of gratitude of all mankind. The 
American envoys must not sit at the peace table 
as umpires between the Allies and the conquered 
Central Powers, but as loyal brothers of the Allies, as 
loyal members of the league of free peoples, which 
has brought about peace by overthrowing Turkey, 
Bulgaria, and Austria, and beating Germany to her 
knees. 



THE MEN WHOSE LOT HAS BEEN 
HARDEST 

December 8, 1918 , 

There recently died of pneumonia in France Major 
W^illard Straight, of the American army. He was 
above the draft age, he was a man of large and many 
interests, he had a wife and three children. There 
was every excuse for him not to have gone to the 
front, but both he and his wife had in their souls that 
touch of heroism which makes it impossible for 
generous natures to see others pay with their bodies 
and not to wish to do so themselves. The one regret 
that Major Straight felt — and he felt it most 
bitterly — was that he had not been able in spite of 
all his efforts to get to the actual firing front. This 
failure was really a cause of great anguish of soul 
to him. In the same way I know of the four sons of 
an ex-Cabinet officer, all of whom instantly went into 
the army at the outbreak of the war. Two were 



282 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

at the fighting front, one was in the navy, and the 
other, because of the special excellence as an in- 
structor, was kept here, and the gallant young fellow 
who left his wife and baby to enlist really feels as if 
the refusal of the War Department to permit him to 
go where he could be shot at had caused a blight in 
his life. I know three other men who, because of 
their excellence, were kept as instructors at one of 
our camps, whose feelings of regret are so bitter that 
they can hardly bear to look at their uniforms and 
the sight of wounded soldiers causes them agonies of 
thwarted longing. 

All this is most natural, and just what we should 
expect from high-minded, gallant fellows. But it is 
entirely unwarranted. I utterly abhor the swivel- 
chair slacker who got some safe job in order to avoid 
doing his duty at the front. But for the hundreds of 
thousands of young Americans in the ranks or with 
commissions who did everything they could to get 
in the firing lines, and who through no fault of 
theirs failed, I have precisely the same feeling that I 
have for the men who took part in the most danger- 
ous work. General Leonard Wood, in his recent 
capital address, has taught the right lesson to these 
men. He was dismissing to their homes the men 
whom he had trained with his usual, extraordinary 
capacity to fit them for work overseas, and he dwelt 
to them upon the fact that the all-important point 
was that they should remember that it was not the 
position they achieved, but the eager readiness to do 
duty in whatever position they were given that really 



AMERICAN COMMON SENSE 283 

counted. General Wood has himself been treated 
with the most cruel injustice in this war, yet he 
has rendered signal service in bringing before Con- 
gress our military needs, and, above all, in training 
scores of thousands of our best fighting men. When 
he was denied, from the very meanest motives, the 
chance to fill a distinguished position, instead of 
sulking he devoted all of his energy to doing the best 
he could in the positions to which he was assigned. 
In consequence he comes out of the war as one of 
those who most materially helped to win it. What is 
true of him in a big place is true of every other 
soldier, whether in a big or little place. The hardest 
task was for the men who were denied the chance of 
glory, and if they did this hard task well and served 
faithfully wherever they were assigned, they have 
exactly the same right for pride in their participa- 
tion in the Great War as any of the gallant fellows 
who have come back maimed or crippled from the 
front. All alike have made the rest of us forever their 
debtors, and to all alike we pay the same meed of 
loyal admiration and respect. 



THE BRITISH NAVY, THE FRENCH 

ARMY, AND AMERICAN, 

COMMON SENSE 

December 17, 191 8 

The first essential in an alliance is loyalty. The 
first effort of an enemy to an alliance is to produce 



284 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

disloyalty to one another among the Allies. To any 
man who knows anything of history these facts are 
of bromidic triteness. But the Administration, as 
usual, stands in urgent need of learning the elements 
of fair play and common sense. 

It was announced from the peace ship that Presi- 
dent Wilson was going to work for the reduction of 
naval armaments and for a form of naval agreement 
v/hich, if it had existed four years ago, would have 
meant Germany's victory and the subjugation of not 
only Germany's foes, but of all neutrals like our- 
selves. At the same time over here the representa- 
tives of the Administration are demanding a navy 
bigger than that of Great Britain. The only possible 
interpretation of these facts is that the Administra- 
tion proposes to threaten Great Britain with having 
to get in a neck-and-neck competition with America 
to build the greatest navy in the world, and to do 
this as a bluff so as to make for Great Britain's ad- 
herence to Mr. Wilson's exceedingly nebulous ideas. 

Under these conditions the American people 
should, with common sense, look at what their own 
needs are and at what the needs of their allies are. 
Sooner or later any programme will have to be tested 
by its results, and even if the United States started 
to emulate Great Britain's navy, the enthusiasm to 
do so would vanish when it appeared that there was 
no earthly interest of ours to be served by the action. 

In winning the present war very many instru- 
mentalities have been necessary. On the whole the 
four most important in their order have been: (i) 



AMERICAN COMMON SENSE .285 

the French army; (2) the British navy; (3) the 
British army; (4) the ItaHan army. Our own gallant 
army and navy did exceedingly well, but came in so 
late that the part they played, taking the four and a 
half years as a whole, does not entitle them to rank 
with the instrumentalities given above. 

Great Britain is an island, separated from the huge 
military commonwealths of Europe by very narrow 
seas, and separated from her own greatest colonies 
by all the greatest oceans. To her, supremacy in the 
navy is a matter of life and death. America ought 
to have a first-class navy, but if she did not have 
a ship she might yet secure herself from any inva- 
sion. But Great Britain's empire would not last one 
week, and she could not make herself safe at home 
one week if her navy lost its supremacy. Inciden- 
tally to saving herself, the British navy has rendered 
incalculable service to us during the last four and 
one-half years, and for the last thirty years has been 
a shield to the United States. Great Britain is not a 
military powder in the sense that any of the nations 
of continental Europe, or indeed of Asia, are military 
powers. She had almost as much difficulty in devel- 
oping her army in this war as we had in developing 
our army. Her army is no more of a threat to other 
peoples than ours is. Therefore, we Americans find 
ourselves, as regards the British navy, in this posi- 
tion, that it is of vital consequence to Great Britain 
to have the greatest navy in the world ; it is emphat- 
ically not of any consequence to us to have as big a 
navy as Great Britain, for we are not in the slightest 



286 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

danger from Great Britain, and under all ordinary 
circumstances the British navy can be counted upon 
as a help to the United States and never as a menace. 
Under such circumstances to set ourselves to work 
to build a navy in rivalry to Great Britain's, and 
above all to do this as a political bluff, is worse than 
silly. 

Our own navy should be ample to protect our own 
coasts and to maintain the Monroe Doctrine. There 
are in Europe and Asia several great military com- 
monwealths, each one of which will in all probabil- 
ity always possess a far more formidable army than 
ours, even though, as I earnestly hope, we adopt 
some development of universal military training on 
the lines of the Swiss system. Therefore, it is of the 
highest consequence that our navy should be second 
to that of Great Britain. 

The analogy with the case of the French army is 
complete. If the French army had not been able to 
hold the German army and be the chief factor in 
the German military overthrow, the British navy 
could not have averted Germany's complete victory. 
Great Britain is separated by the narrow seas from 
the military powers of continental Europe. We are 
separated from them by the width of the ocean. 
Under the circumstances, it is sheer impertinence for 
either American or English statesmen to tell France, 
or, for that matter Italy, what ought to be done in 
abolishing armaments or abandoning universal serv- 
ice or anything of the kind. The interest of France 
and Italy in the matter is vital. The interest of 



STRAIGHTFORWARD SPEAKING 287 

England and America is partly secondary. If we 
have well-thought-out arguments to put before the 
French, put them before them, but treat France as 
having the vital interest in the matter, and therefore 
the final say-so as far as we are concerned. And 
when France has determined what the needs of the 
future demand, so far as her military preparedness 
is concerned, and when Italy has made a similar de- 
termination, and our other allies likewise, back them 
up. It is not the business of America to tell Great 
Britain what she should do with her navy. It is not 
the business of either America or England to tell 
France what she should do with her army. The 
plain American common sense of the situation is that 
we should recognize our immense debt to the British 
navy and the French army, and stand by Britain in 
what she decides her vital needs demand so far as 
her navy is concerned, and stand by France in the 
position she takes as to what the situation demands 
so far as her army is concerned. 



LET US HAVE STRAIGHTFORWARD 
SPEAKING 

December 24, 191 8 

Senator Lodge in his admirable speech has given 
the reasons why at least five of the famous fourteen 
points should not be considered in the peace nego- 
tiations proper. But the special merit of Senator 
Lodge's statement lies in the fact that it is straight- 



288 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

forward and clear. There Is no need of a key to find 
out what he means. The men who represent, or as- 
sume to represent, the United States at the Peace 
Conference, should be equally clear with our allies 
and our enemies and also with the American people. 
Above all things we need some straightforward 
statement as to just what is proposed and as to just 
why it is proposed. 

Take, for example, the very extraordinary conflict 
between that one of the fourteen points in which the 
Administration has demanded practically complete 
disarmament and the action of the Administration 
at the same moment demanding that we shall build 
the biggest navy in the world. Either one course or 
the other m.ust necessarily be improper. In such a 
matter we especially need a straightforward state- 
ment of reasons and principles. 

The worst thing we could do would be to build a 
spite navy, a navy built not to meet our own needs, 
but to spite some one else. I am speaking purely as 
an American. No man in this countr}^ who is both 
intelligent or Informed has the slightest fear that 
Great Britain will ever invade us or try to go to war 
with us. The British navy is not In the slightest 
degree a menace to us. I can go a little further than 
this. There is in Great Britain a large pacifist and 
defeatist party which behaves exactly like our own 
pacifists, pro-Germans, Germanized Socialists, de- 
featists, and Bolsheviki. If this party had Its way 
and Great Britain abandoned its fleet, I should feel, 
so far from the United States being freed from the 



A SQUARE DEAL 289 

necessity of building up a fleet, that It behooved us to 
build a much stronger one than Is at present neces- 
sary. Our need is not as great as that of the vast 
scattered British Empire, for our domains are pretty 
much in a ring fence. We ought not to undertake the 
task of policing Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. 
Neither ought we to permit any Interference with 
the Monroe Doctrine or any attempt by Europe or 
Asia to police America. Mexico Is our Balkan Pen- 
insula. Some day we will have to deal with it. All 
the coasts and islands which In any way approach 
the Panama Canal must be dealt with by this Na- 
tion, and by this Nation alone. In accordance with 
the Monroe Doctrine. With this object in view our 
navy should be second to that of Great Britain and 
superior to that of any other power — and if Great 
Britain chooses to abolish Its navy It would mean 
that we ought to build a larger navy than is now 
necessary. 



A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE MEN 
AT THE FRONT 

December 25, 191 8 

We should show our respect for the men at the front 
by more than mere adulation. They are the Ameri- 
cans who have done most and suffered most for this 
country. It was announced In the press that In many 
cases they and the families they have left behind 
have not for months received their full pay. This Is 



290 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

an outrage. All civil officials are paid. The Secre- 
tary of War is paid, and he ought not to touch a 
dollar of his salary and no high official should touch 
a dollar of his salary until the enlisted men and 
junior officers are paid every cent that is owing to 
them, and this payment should be prompt. There is 
literally no excuse for even so much as three days* 
delay in the payment. 

Moreover, these men, at great cost to themselves 
in paying everything including, in fifty or sixty 
thousand cases, their lives, have gone to the front at 
a wage from one half to one fifth as great as that 
their companions who stayed behind have received 
during the same period. They enlisted to do a spe- 
cific job. They made the sacrifice in order to do that 
job. We on our side should see that just as soon as 
the job is done the men are taken home, allowed to 
leave the army, and begin earning their livelihood 
and take care of the wives and children that the 
married ones among them have left behind. 

Recently in the public press there have appeared 
various artless and chatty statements from the 
State, War, and Navy departments that our men 
might be kept in Europe to do general police work 
and might not be brought back here until the 
summer of 1920. There are three types of soldiers on 
the other side. There are the Regular Army men, 
who have entered the Regular Army as a profession, 
and to whom it is a matter of indifi"erence whether 
they stay in Europe, come back here, go to the 
Philippines, or do anything else. That is a small 



A SQUARE DEAL 291 

proportion of our force on the other side. The bulk 
are divided between volunteers, who enlisted in the 
National Guard or sometimes in the regular regi- 
ments to fight this war through, and the drafted men 
who were put into the army under a law designed to 
meet this war and this war only. Not one in ten of 
the volunteers would have dreamed of volunteering 
to do police work in European squabbles. Not ten 
Congressmen would have voted for the Draft Law 
if it was to force selective men to do police duty after 
the war was over. All these men went in to fight this 
war through to a finish and then to come home. It 
is not a square deal to follow any other course as 
regards them. The minute that peace comes every 
American soldier on the other side should be brought 
home as speedily as possible save, of course, the 
regulars who make the Regular Army their life pro- 
fession, and any other man who chose to volunteer to 
go over, or who can with entire propriety be used for 
gathering up the loose ends. The American fighting 
man at the front has given this country a square deal 
during the war. Now let the country give him a 
square deal by letting him get out of the army and go 
to his home as soon as the war is finished. The Red 
Cross has done wonderful work in taking care of the 
dependents of these men pending settlement by the 
Government, but the Government should not be 
content to rely on any outside organization to make 
up its own shortcomings. 



292 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS ^ 
January 13, 1919 

It is, of course, a serious misfortune that our people 
are not getting a clear idea of what is happening on 
the other side. For the moment the point as to 
which we are foggy is the League of Nations. We all 
of us earnestly desire such a league, only we wish to 
be sure that it will help and not hinder the cause of 
world peace and justice. There is not a young man 
in this country who has fought, or an old man who 
has seen those dear to him fight, who does not wish 
to minimize the chance of future war. But there is 
not a man of sense who does not know that in any 
such movement if too much is attempted the result 
is either failure or worse than failure. 

^ This article on " The League of Nations " is the last contribution 
that Colonel Roosevelt prepared for The Star. It was dictated at his 
home in Oyster Bay, January 3, the Friday before his death. His 
secretary expected to take the typed copy to him for correction Mon- 
day. Instead she was called on the telephone early Monday morning 
and told of his death. A delay of several days naturally ensued, before 
the editorial reached the office of The Star. 

In view of the immense moment of the issues before the Peace 
Conference, The Star had asked Colonel Roosevelt to give his country- 
men the benefit of his discussion of the possibilities of a League of 
Nations as a preventive of war. He consented, although, as he wrote, 
he expected to follow this editorial with one " on what I regard as 
infinitely more important, namely, our business to prepare for our 
own self-defense." That article, however, was never written. 

This article, then, his final contribution to The Star, represents his 
matured judgment based on protracted discussion and correspondence. 
It is of peculiar importance as the last message of a man who, above 
every other American of his generation, combined high patriotism, 
practical sense, and a positive genius for international relations. 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 293 

The trouble with Mr. Wilson's utterances, so far 
as they are reported, and the utterances of ac- 
quiescence in them by European statesmen, is that 
they are still absolutely in the stage of rhetoric 
precisely like the " fourteen points." Some of the 
fourteen points will probably have to be construed 
as having a mischievous significance, a smaller 
number might be construed as being harmless, and 
one or two even as beneficial, but nobody knows 
what Mr. Wilson really means by them, and so all 
talk of adopting them as basis for a peace or a league 
is nonsense and, if the talker is intelligent, it is in- 
sincere nonsense to boot. So Mr. Wilson's recent 
utterances give us absolutely no clue as to whether 
he really intends that at this moment we shall admit 
Germany, Russia, — with which, incidentally, we 
are still waging war, — Turkey, China, and Mexico 
into the League on full equality with ourselves. Mr. 
Taft has recently defined the purposes of the League 
and the limitations under which it would act, in a 
way that enables most of us to say we very heartily 
agree in principle with his theory and can, without 
doubt, come to an agreement on specific details. 

Would it not be well to begin with the League 
which we actually have in existence, the League of the 
Allies who have fought through this great war? Let 
us at the peace table see that real justice is done 
as among these Allies, and that while the sternest 
reparation is demanded from our foes for such 
horrors as those committed in Belgium, Northern 
France, Armenia, and the sinking of the Lusitania, 



294 ROOSEVELT IN THE STAR 

nothing should be done in the spirit of mere venge- 
ance. Then let us agree to extend the privileges of 
the League, as rapidly as their conduct warrants it, 
to other nations, doubtless discriminating between 
those who would have a guiding part in the League 
and the weak nations who would be entitled to the 
privileges of membership, but who would not be 
entitled to a guiding voice in the councils. Let each 
nation reserve to itself and for its own decision, and 
let it clearly set forth questions which are non- 
justiciable. Let nothing be done that will interfere 
with our preparing for our own defense by introduc- 
ing a system of universal obligatory military training 
modeled on the Swiss plan. 

Finally make it perfectly clear that we do not 
intend to take a position of international Meddle- 
some Matty. The American people do not wish to 
go into an overseas war unless for a very great cause 
and where the issue is absolutely plain. Therefore, 
we do not wish to undertake the responsibility of 
sending our gallant young men to die in obscure 
fights in the Balkans or in Central Europe, or in a 
war we do not approve of. Moreover, the American 
people do not intend to give up the Monroe Doc- 
trine. Let civilized Europe and Asia introduce some 
kind of police system in the weak and disorderly 
countries at their thresholds. But let the United 
States treat Mexico as our Balkan Peninsula and 
refuse to allow European or Asiatic powers to inter- 
fere on this continent in any way that implies per- 
manent or semi-permanent possession. Every one of 



THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 295 

our allies will with delight grant this request if 
President Wilson chooses to make it, and it will be a 
great misfortune if it is not made. 

I believe that such an effort made moderately and 
sanely, but sincerely and with utter scorn for words 
that are not made good by deeds, will be productive 
of real and lasting international good. 



THE END 



THIS LARGE-PAPER EDITION CONSISTS OF THREE HUN- 
DRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE NUMBERED COPIES, OF 
WHICH THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ARE FOR SALE. 
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